International students
You are testing outside the United States, for US colleges.
What's actually different about your situation
Your constraint is cost and logistics rather than content. The test is identical; what differs is that a sitting costs meaningfully more, seats at international centres fill early, and a fee waiver will not rescue you because it does not cover the regional fee. Score-sending deadlines also land awkwardly against time zones.
The order to do it in
Sequence matters more than volume here. Doing step three first is the most common way this goes wrong.
Price the whole plan before you register. Two sittings from India is roughly $262 once the regional fee and GST are counted, not $136.
Register early for the centre, not just the date. International centres fill before domestic ones and a centre change costs $34.
Spend the four free score reports inside the nine-day window on schools you would send to regardless of the result.
Check each college's policy on required versus optional separately; international applicants are sometimes treated differently from domestic ones.
By what you're aiming at
| Your goal | Start here |
|---|---|
| A first real score | Fees abroad |
| Raise 100+ points | Score jumps |
| Reach 1500+ | 1400 to 1500 |
| National Merit | US students only |
| Scholarship money | Score to dollars |
| Submit or withhold | Who requires it |
Start with a diagnostic, not a syllabus
A free full-length adaptive mock tells you which of the steps above is actually your bottleneck.