Testing Tests?

With the talk of Early Decisions, SAT scores, and legacy, people soon get lost in the college prerequisites. If you follow any of the Ivy League colleges through either a parent who is an alumnus or just general interest, you may have heard that most colleges at this time do NOT require official test submissions such as the ACT or SAT exam. As a student, I know what you’re thinking. “Wait, so I did all of that for nothing?” No, of course not. But the playing field in which test scores used to give you a competitive edge has changed drastically.

I’m sure all of us have either overheard our friends crying about having to prepare for standardized tests or heard our parents console us about extra supplementary resources, but with this current environment in standardized testing, you have to ask yourself: what’s most important to make your college application stand out? While standardized tests may put you ahead of other applicants with similar attributes if they choose to NOT submit their test scores, they are no longer quite the boost they were. As of September 2023, the majority of the top twenty schools in the country do not require standardized test scoring. The problem with so many colleges not requiring scores is that the only scores that WILL be submitted will be significantly higher than usual.

In 2016, a 1200 and above on a test like the SAT was considered a great score, higher than most participants. Today, it is rare to see a selective college with an average student SAT score of anything less than 1400. In the past, all test scores had to be submitted, but now you can choose to only submit the highest, which therefore drives the average higher. This situation also makes it more challenging for people to take these tests in the first place, because students are filling the exam dates faster than ever, hoping to take the exams as many times as possible to get the highest score. Never before have we seen a time like this for standardized testing.

The topic of standardized testing and how it’s being handled by the College Board is evolving, thus leaving students confused about what’s next. Many colleges are preparing to value legacy less than before Amherst, John Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon University, for instance, all claim to disregard legacy in applications past 2023. This fact causes the worry that yet another competitive edge has been lost. How can we tell what’s next? The answer is, we can’t. College application at this date and age changes every week and we can’t expect it to stay the same for any extended period of time.