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We’ve gotten a lot of questions about test optional policies and the death of the ACT and SAT. While confusion reigns, we wanted to offer a FAQ that forgoes speculation and focuses on what’s happening now and what you should do about it.

What’s going on?

The two major developments of the past few months—the pandemic and protests—have both accelerated discussion of the “end of testing.” In the past few days, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, and Duke have joined the ranks of more than half the colleges in America going test-optional for the fall given the uncertainties around fall testing. At the same time, the tests have been decried as racist given a clear correlation in score to one’s economic and racial background; for their part, the College Board (maker of SAT) and ACT have offered the rather weak defense that the tests reflect existing educational inequalities rather than perpetuate them. This sounds, on the surface, pretty dubious: if school rankings depend on higher test scores, then schools will obviously be incentivized to take higher-scoring (overall more economically privileged) students.

But there’s a catch. What if the other parts of the application are more biased towards certain applicants and the standardized tests help level those differences? This is, in effect, what a University of California task force argued in a study a few months ago, before UC adopted a long-term plan to go test-blind, and some progressives have argued that standardized testing helps eliminate racial bias. In the scope of college admissions, ACT and SAT prep is often much more accessible than other activities, making the ACT and SAT the most level playing field in a meritocratic approach to admissions.

This reasoning is compelling—as long as colleges are using the scores to compare students from similar educational backgrounds. Rankings, however, force schools to use scores to compare students from different educational backgrounds, which is where issues arise. To put that another way: the real issue here is with the rankings, which force colleges to use ACT and SAT scores in ways that can perpetuate inequalities. But without rankings as a consideration, ACT and SAT scores can be crucial for admissions officers to evaluate applicants relative to their peer group—and potentially eliminate inequalities.

With all that said, we hope colleges will also consider another piece too. Is spending 6-12 months prepping for a test the best use of a student’s time? Could they use that time more significantly to take college classes and delve into enrichment learning?

For the moment, though, we want to focus on what these policies mean for you now.

Are the ACT and SAT truly optional for private school students?

Officially speaking, this depends on the college. Schools like Yale and Dartmouth claim that students won’t be disadvantaged if they don’t submit scores.

Other schools, however, suggest a very different viewpoint: test-optional is really intended for economically disadvantaged students. The ACT and SAT “might still be a meaningful differentiator," according to Cornell, “for students who have not experienced lost income for one or more of their household providers or other significant new hardships and losses during 2020.” Harvard says that students won’t be disadvantaged if they don’t submit scores, but it adds that “the COVID-19 pandemic has created insurmountable challenges for all students, particularly those from modest economic backgrounds.” Echoing Harvard, Duke contextualizes its new policy in the observation that “challenges associated with standardized testing fall disproportionately among those with the fewest resources.”

In the context of a larger national conversation on equity, it would make sense that these policies are intended to help students from disadvantaged backgrounds: going test-optional is a way to level the playing field for those applicants.

We’re more suspicious whether colleges intend these policies for private school students, and we understand that college consultants (and likely colleges themselves) have divergent views. Let’s make a few key points:

• Colleges are accustomed to seeing top ACT and SAT scores from high-performing private school students, and that won’t change this admissions cycle. This is the norm.
  
• Many high-achieving private school students are taking advantage of a canceled summer to boost test scores. Many others already have high test scores on the books.
  
• Colleges are able to get many of their top ACT/SAT scores from private school students to help their rankings (though that ranking may be in disarray this cycle).
  
• In admission’s zero-sum game, there is no such thing as scores that “can only help you.” If they’re helping your chances, they’re hurting someone else’s. And if that person is submitting scores that help their chances, then they may be impacting yours.
  
• If students are not disadvantaged by not submitting scores, then, at the very least, every other part of the application gains greater value. Both strengths and weaknesses will be exacerbated.
  

I have a score. How do I decide if I should submit it?

• If your score is above the 50th percentile mark for a given school, you’re above average and have a general advantage compared to other applicants. If you’re above the 75th percentile, you likely have an advantage compared to peers from the private school system. If your score is below the 50th percentile mark, you have a potential liability since you’d be lowering their average score overall. In that case, you probably shouldn’t submit.
  
• More broadly, compare your test score to the rest of your application. If the rest of your application is stronger, you might consider dropping your ACT/SAT score (but only if it’s below average for the school you’re applying to). If the rest of the application is weaker, then you should submit. We recommend working with a college consultant since this can be hard to gauge.
  

How do I decide to prep or continue prep?

As long as any of your prospective schools are requiring the ACT and SAT, you don’t have much choice: you’ll need to prep. If you’re a rising sophomore or junior, that means you should almost certainly prep for the tests (start by taking a diagnostic or send us your score reports, and we can run them through our diagnostics). Most schools still expect to require the ACT and SAT next year, and no school will be test-blind.

If you’re a rising senior:

• Keep an eye on policies. Schools like Princeton, Vanderbilt and MIT are not test-optional for the fall, though that may change quickly. If you plan to apply to a school that hasn’t gone test-optional, keep prepping.
  
• If you are only applying to test-optional schools, gauge what the chances are of getting to a score that beats the 50th percentile score and the 75th percentile score. Don’t continue prep if you don’t think you can get there.
  

I know I can prep for an extended period of time and improve my score—but is it worth it when I could just apply to test-optional schools instead?

If your time is extremely limited, the answer might be no. Focusing on your hook, the parts of an application that make you irreplaceably unique, can yield greater rewards for yourself and the application. We’re working with many of our students this summer on independent research projects, online classes, independent enrichment, and pre-learning material. These can all help students stand out.

But if a student does have even three hours a week, then prep is going to be worth it for students who have a shot at an above-average score for the schools they’re applying to. Strong scores remain powerful statements of achievement, and they also remain the norm for top applicants, many of whom prep for 6-12 months to move their scores considerably. Even if all schools go test-optional, that’s unlikely to change—unless schools go test-blind, which remains both uncertain and far-off.

Should we expect students to need the ACT and SAT in future cycles?

For now, yes. Some schools like Tufts are going to try out test-optional for a few years, while the UC Schools have committed to going test-blind within five years. But it’s clear that these are trial experiments, and even if schools want to go test-optional (not necessarily the case), they’re going to see how things go this admissions cycle. All else aside, test scores save a lot of time for admissions officers who can remove a chunk of low-scoring applications at the start. Getting rid of standardized tests is a way of making more work for admissions.