Colleges Drop ACT, SAT Test Score Requirements Due to Pandemic


Standardized college entrance tests like the ACT and SAT may soon be a thing of the past.

More than half of all U.S. colleges and universities have dropped the requirement for ACT and SAT scores due to the coronavirus pandemic. While some are doing it just for the upcoming academic year, there’s a growing trend of opting out of the requirement altogether.

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The University of Illinois at Chicago is one of the schools that has canceled its testing requirement because of the virus.

“We don’t want to hold [students] to a standard that they can’t meet at this point,” said Kevin Browne, the vice provost for academic and enrollment services at the UIC.

Meanwhile, this isn’t new to the University of Chicago. In 2018, they stopped requiring students to submit their scores to the school. Veronica Hauad, the deputy director of admissions at the University of Chicago, said this makes higher education accessible to students. Breaking down this testing barrier has allowed for a more diverse pool of applicants, she added.

“We have seen more diverse applicant pool, so we’ve seen in the same with our student body with test optional admissions,” Hauad said.


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