Critical Documents 81
aid award. Ask the college admissions office if they offer
this opportunity.
Remember, sitting for an ACT/SAT test on the college
campus can’t change an ACT/SAT score for the purposes of
NCAA eligibility because it isn’t given at a National Testing
Date location. The ACT/SAT scores that the NCAA recog-
nizes for the purpose of determining your eligibility are
those scores earned on the National Testing Dates only.
If you follow the advice of this guide, it is likely that you’ll
take the SAT/ACT more than once as you try to improve
your score. If you are concerned that a college will notice
that your initial test scores might be low and wish for them
to see only your best score (most likely a later one), the fol-
lowing strategy can be quite helpful. Each test has a section
that offers you the opportunity to have the score sent to
different entities. The selection of the entities to which you
want your score sent is accomplished by the test taker filling
in a number of four letter boxes. These numbers correspond
to a college. The number 9999 tells the testing company to
send the score to the Initial Eligibility Center. Each score
received by the center is included in the information sent to
any college asking for Initial Eligibility Center Credentials of
an athlete. So if you have four ACT scores of 17, 19, 20, and
24, it’s likely that you’d prefer any college interested in you
to see only the 24 score and not the sequence of scores. If
you don’t include 9999 in your “send to” box, only you or
the colleges you select will see the other scores. When the
24 score arrives at your home, you can contact the College
Board or ACT, and for a small fee, usually around $15, they
will send the best score to the Initial Eligibility Center for
inclusion in your credentials.