As Ithaca College has become one of the newest members of colleges and universities giving students the option of providing admissions with SAT/ACT scores, I thought this would be a good time to remind high school students and parents about test-optional schools. Colleges that are test-optional give students with low testing scores a better chance of getting into selective schools. If a student chooses to go the route of not sending in testing scores, admissions will focus more on the student’s high school cumulative GPA and strength of schedule in addition to the student’s personal profile (résumé, essay, extra-curriculars, etc.). The list of schools providing test-optional applications gets bigger and bigger each year, which subsequently helps more and more students get into colleges that they may have been denied from if they had to send in testing scores.
Research continues to show that SATs and ACTs only have a small percentage of predictability for student success in higher education. More and more colleges have seen that there just is not enough consistent correlation between how a student performs on a 4-hour test and how that student will perform over 4 years at their institution. For many, this just is not enough to justify placing so much weight on the tests. From my experience, selective schools that are test-optional, benefit students with high GPAs, but SAT or ACT scores that are not reflective of their GPA. However, students that have low GPAs, going test-optional have not helped them as much to gain acceptance into certain colleges. To see an up-to-date list of test-optional schools, please click on this LINK.
-Joseph D. Korfmacher, MA
