How It Works: Sharing Your Test Scores with Colleges
By Faith Walessa
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Standardized testing has long been one of the great equalizers of college admissions, designed to provide a rigorous, universally understood metric for testing academic readiness. In order to verify these scores, colleges rely on score sharing, where students can send their test scores directly to their schools of interest through their test’s official website to ensure integrity and security in the admissions process.
It sounds simple, and it should be, but the full story is a lot more complicated. In this post, we’re breaking down the whole process: why score sharing is important for admissions, the hidden difficulties of sharing your score through the SAT and the ACT, and a better alternative for students seeking to send a test score they can be proud of to their dream school, completely free of charge.
What is Score Sharing?
When you apply to college, there are many aspects of your performance as a student you are trying to communicate. However, you are working against the fact that your high school and its grading system may be unfamiliar to the colleges you are applying to. Standardized tests have long been the solution for admissions consideration, as their reputation allows them to independently verify the skills demonstrated on your application. This means that a strong performance on a standardized test can immediately set you apart.
Meanwhile, test scores can be shared early to jumpstart your application, indicate advance interest in a school, and make an impression on admissions counselors. And mid-level or higher scores are often tied directly to scholarships or guaranteed admissions, meaning that sharing your test scores could be the key to securing an affordable college experience at your dream school.
Clearly, sharing standardized test scores has remained an integral part of the college admissions process for a reason. The only thing left to decide is which exam to take to best demonstrate your skills and advocate for your admissions. It turns out, the score sharing process itself might be able to help you make that decision.
How to Send SAT & ACT Test Scores to Colleges
Score sharing sounds simple: receive your scores online, select the colleges you want to inform of your results, and press send. However, sharing your SAT and ACT scores is surprisingly complicated. When you register for an SAT or ACT exam, you are only allowed free score shares with four schools of your choice, requiring you to narrow your college list down early. These four schools must be confirmed when you register or in the few days following your test date. Additionally, in order for these score shares to be free, you must agree to participate in “automatic score sharing,” meaning that your scores will be immediately sent to these four schools, without the opportunity for you to review them. The result? Your dream schools are receiving your test results before you even find out what they are.
If you choose to opt out of this automatic score sharing to protect the strength of your application, you can wait to fill out the list of colleges you want to share your score with–but there is a significant cost. After your test results come out, the free score share window closes, and every college you share your score with afterwards comes at a minimum price of $15 per SAT share, and $20 per ACT share–plus more if the scores are a rush order. If you choose to retake the SAT or the ACT and want to share your updated score, you must pay for each share again if you do not want your scores forwarded blindly.
Charging for informed score sharing forces students to either dramatically limit the schools they share their scores with, pay a heavy price to contact their whole college list, or risk jeopardizing their college admissions by allowing the College Board to send their free scores without yet knowing what they are. If sharing your test scores with colleges is so important, then why have the SAT and the ACT made it so confusing, difficult, and expensive?
Moreover, with the ongoing decline in College Board standards, SAT and ACT scores will soon become as difficult for colleges to trust as they are for students to share. Luckily, there is a better alternative.
The CLT Difference: Score Sharing Made Easy
While sharing scores through the College Board subjects you to limitations and hidden costs, there is a stress-free college admissions alternative to be found in the Classic Learning Test (CLT). Accepted for admissions and scholarships at over 350 Partner Colleges nationwide, and tied to over $100 million in annual scholarships, CLT exams can be taken from the comfort of your own home and come with free, unlimited score sharing. This means that you can send your score to as many schools as you desire, with no hidden fees designed to trip you up, and no anxiety about automatic score sharing revealing your test results to your dream school before you see them.
With all of these restrictions removed, score sharing with CLT becomes a huge advantage, opening up greater potential in what your test scores can do for you. With the chance to freely review your scores before sending them, you can tailor the scores you send to colleges you know will be impressed. With unlimited shares available to you for free, you can broaden your college search at no additional cost. As a CLT tester, you are no longer trapped between risking a blind share you’re not happy with or spending double your registration fee just to share your scores with a longer list of schools.
Most importantly, CLT results are a strong advocate for you as a student. Your CLT exam will intentionally highlight your key skills by testing a combination of both aptitude and achievement. When you submit CLT scores to colleges, you are demonstrating not only acquired knowledge, but also your aptitude for thinking critically and logically based on that knowledge. These are skills that you have been developing across your entire education and they are yours to showcase to top colleges. The test you choose should reflect that, and the work you put into that test should be yours to share freely.
How to Send CLT Scores to Colleges
If your CLT score comes back and you’re thrilled with the results, then congratulations! You can share that accomplishment with any of our 350 Partner Colleges to start the conversation about college admissions and show them your merit on a scale that matters. If your first results are not what you hoped they would be, then CLT’s score sharing process means that you find that out before any college does. This allows you the maximum amount of freedom in your college application process to retake the test and improve your results before you share them to improve your chances of earning admissions and scholarships.
In another unique advantage for CLT students, CLT allows you to share your CLT10 scores (as an alternative to the PSAT and PreACT) to begin connecting with colleges and admissions counselors early and building an academic profile at your top choice schools. This advanced opportunity to make an impression is notably absent from both the SAT and ACT testing systems, as the College Board offers no way to transmit PSAT or PreACT scores to colleges. Once again, sharing CLT10 scores is unlimited and entirely free of charge, so CLT students can make full use of the benefits available to them and start their college admissions process one step ahead.
You already took the exam; deciding if it’s worth the money, risk, or headache to share your scores with your dream college shouldn’t feel like a test too. Applying to college can be a stressful experience, but sharing the scores from a standardized test you worked so hard to prepare for does not need to add to your stress. CLT exams offer a score sharing system that understands your needs, allowing you to take charge of your test results and use them to their full potential.
Faith Walessa is from Ontario, Canada, and is a rising junior at Hillsdale College. She loves fanciful poetry, reading by flashlight, and freshly brewed coffee.
If you enjoyed this piece, be sure to check out The Anchored Podcast. For more Journal content, check out this post on what the CLT tests. From all of us at the Journal, thanks for reading and have a great rest of your week.
Published on 15th June, 2026.