Home > Uncategorized > The New Normal: If SATs are Unnecessary for 2021 Admissions Why Would They Be Needed in the Future?

The New Normal: If SATs are Unnecessary for 2021 Admissions Why Would They Be Needed in the Future?

April 16, 2020

College admissions officers are finding themselves in a bit of a quandary. As CCN’s Alicia Lee reports, since SOME applicants could not take SAT tests this Spring many colleges are dropping the requirement altogether. Ms. Lee writes:

In total, about 51 universities and colleges have dropped the ACT/SAT requirement for at least fall 2021 in recent months, according to a list by the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, or FairTest, a nonprofit organization working to end the misuse of standardized testing.
They include Boston University, which announced it’s going test-optional for students applying for the fall 2021 and spring 2022 semesters, and the University of California, which said all nine of the schools in its system would suspend the requirement for students applying for fall 2021.
Some schools are going test-optional for even longer, as is the case with the extremely competitive Tufts University, which announced it would make the tests optional for a three-year period.
Others, including Tulane University, all Oregon public universities, the University of Washington, Scripps College, Northeastern University and Texas Christian University have all made testing optional for fall 2021 or longer.
This is good news and a good start, but the REALLY good news will come when USNews and World Report develops their top college lists after 2021 and will be forced to either drop the SAT scores from its algorithm or put an asterisk next to at least 51 schools. If there is a karmic reward for the sacrifices this year’s junior are making, it would be the abandonment of standardized tests as the primary metric for measuring “performance”. Here’s hoping!
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