Like the rest of college admissions, the world of standardized testing was turned on it its head during the COVID pandemic. In 2020, SAT and ACT testing came to a complete halt in many parts of the country, forcing test-optional admissions policies at most colleges. While some (mostly small, liberal arts-based) colleges had already permanently dumped standardized testing requirements before COVID, most universities have temporarily suspended them on a year-to-year basis since then. Some are holding off on a permanent decision until 2025 to see how the first class of students who entered test-optional fare compared to previous classes. Still others have made the tests optional, but require an extra essay in their place. And some universities have already brought them back. (That list currently includes public universities in Georgia and Florida, the University of Tennessee, MIT and Georgetown). And then there’s the University of California system, which has gone completely test blind.

Now that standardized tests are anything but standard in college admissions, high school students are questioning whether they should bother taking them in the first place and whether they should submit their scores once they do. Below I offer my advice on both fronts, based on conversations with admissions officers at various colleges and data from the past three admissions cycles

Should I take an SAT or ACT at all?
To 99 percent of students, my answer is, “Yes!” Here are four reasons why:

1. First, remember that at the majority of colleges, tests are optional. A running joke in college admissions is that optional never really means optional. If College X has an optional essay, you write it; if College Y gives you the option to submit a test score that can help prove you are an academic fit for their institution, you submit it.
   
   
2. Second, a lot of schools still use standardized tests to award merit scholarships, even if they don’t require them for admission, and small score increases can equate to big bucks. For example, at the University of Alabama, a student with a 3.5+ GPA and a 1360 SAT or 30 ACT will receive twenty-seven thousand dollars more over the course of their college career than they would if they scored a 1350 or a 29. (That’s essentially the equivalent of getting one more answer right on the test)!
   
   
3. Third, the policy at each college is changing from year-to-year. Last year, for instance, the University of Tennessee was test-optional; this year, it is not. We don’t yet know who will be test optional during the 2023-2024 admissions cycle.
   
   
4. Finally, while some colleges report no difference in the acceptance rates of students who submitted scores versus those who didn’t, at some selective colleges, such as University of Virginia, Boston College, Notre Dame and Vanderbilt, students who submit competitive scores are admitted at a much higher rate.

In the Austin area, where most of my clients live, most high schools offer the SAT for free during the school day each March. So students have the opportunity to see how they fare without having to pay or give up part of their weekend, which makes the choice to test at least once even easier. The one percent of students I might advise not to test at all would be students who suffer from extreme test anxiety (extreme being the operative word because virtually everyone feels some anxiety upon beginning a test).

I took the test, but should I submit my scores?
This answer is not so cut-and-dried. Here are some considerations to make:

1. The conventional wisdom is to submit if your score lands above the 50th percentile of the college’s most recently enrolled class of students and not to submit if it doesn’t. (To see what the 50th percentile is at a particular college, google college name, followed by Common Data Set and scroll down to Section C9).
   
   
2. But you also should consider just how optional the test optional policy is at each institution. For instance, Auburn will accept an application without a test score, but they prefer not to. Last year I saw otherwise strong applicants get deferred at Auburn when they didn’t submit scores. Likewise, UT Austin says that scores are optional, but encouraged.
   
   
3. Third, consider not only how your score compares to the institution’s averages, but how it compares to the rest of your application. If your grades and extracurricular activities place you in the top 75th percentile of applicants at a particular school and your SAT or ACT hovers around the 50th percentile, it may not be to your benefit to submit.

Unfortunately, whether to submit at each and every college is a decision that requires a lot of research and understanding about the admission priorities at each institution and is one of the considerations that has made college admissions more complicated in recent years.

In the end, however, I think most would agree that options are a good thing. Options lead to opportunities. Students who have stellar grades and extracurriculars but test poorly have had the opportunity to attend colleges that would have been inaccessible to them in a test-required world. Others who have done well on their SATs and ACTs but made some missteps in the classroom for one reason or another are glad they have test scores to show their academic potential. By taking the tests and making informed decisions about whether and where to submit your scores, you keep your options open, and opportunities will follow.