The Covid-19 pandemic ushered in a new era in elite college admissions: test-optional admissions policies. While test-optional admissions policies existed before the pandemic’s onset, before 2020, most of America’s top colleges required the submission of either SAT or ACT scores for admission. With test cancelations and administrative closures due to …
Are you trying to figure out if the SAT or ACT is better suited for you? Long gone is the era when students on America’s coasts took only the SAT and students in the middle of the country took only the ACT — and long gone is the era when …
Just as the seasons go round and round, the SAT is morphing again — yet another of life’s constants. It seems like just yesterday when we had a Verbal section of the SAT with analogies and sentence completions, an essay open to free ranging interpretation. And then, whoosh, a revamped …
UPS has apparently lost some SAT exams. Now, it’s not exactly the first time that a mail carrier has lost standardized exams. Just last year, UPS compensated test-takers from Starpoint High School for losing their AP exams. And several years back, a number of Staten Island, New York test-takers’ SAT …
When America’s elite colleges ushered in test-optional admissions policies, it was because they didn’t have much of a choice. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led to cancelations of SAT and ACT test administrations across America and around the world. America’s colleges, during the time well before the vaccines rolled …
Loyal readers of our college admissions blog know where we stand on test-optional admissions policies at our nation’s elite universities: all else being equal, students with great SAT or ACT scores will always enjoy an advantage over applicants with no test scores. And while we are very well aware that …
Should students submit SAT or ACT test scores to test-optional universities? A high school counselor at Clairton High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has offered the absolutely correct advice. In a piece in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Bill Shackner entitled “More colleges are making the SAT optional. Should high school students still …
It’s not just the stock market that’s been plummeting of late. ACT scores among high school students are also declining rather dramatically in a post-pandemic world. In fact, this year’s cohort of high school graduates who took the ACT scored lower on the exam than any other graduating class in …
Loyal readers of our college admissions blog know where we stand on test-optional admissions policies. In spite of what many admissions officers will tell you to the contrary, all else being equal, students with great SAT or ACT scores will always enjoy an advantage over students who choose not to …
Curious about the history of the SAT? Or about how the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped The College Board’s business model? There’s an outstanding piece in The New Yorker by Eren Orbey that shines a lantern on how the ubiquitous standardized test has changed since its inception (and particularly over these …
