Summary:
The current SAT and ACT landscape is drastically different in the post pandemic world. Many colleges have gone either test optional or even test blind, not even looking at a student’s SAT or ACT scores. So the question remains, are SAT and ACT scores still important?
Transcript:
0:00:03: In this video, I want to talk a little bit about the current SAT/ ACT landscape. We live in a post pandemic world, where lots and lots of colleges have gone either test optional or, in the case of the University of California schools and some others, test blind. They won’t even look at your SAT or ACT scores.
0:00:22: So the question is, are they still important? Is this something that needs to be a part of your life as a high school student? And the answer is probably for most of you, it still needs to be part of your life. But for some of you, it doesn’t. If you’re only applying to schools that don’t look at test scores, that are test blind, okay, don’t worry about it, right?
0:00:45: If you are a student who does extremely well in school and really poorly on standardized tests…probably don’t need to take the tests unless you’re applying to a school that does require them. There aren’t many of those right now, but that could change in the near future. This whole policy is being completely rewritten by colleges.
0:01:04: So for the rest of you, I would say you should take the SAT, or you should take the ACT. You could take both, but it’s probably better to identify which test you are better at first. And we’re going to go into a whole other video about how to decide which test to take. But you should probably think about taking the test.
0:01:24: You should prep ahead of time to take the test. You can do that on your own. You can work with a tutor. You can take a class. There are lots of different options for prepping for the SAT and ACT, but you want to try to match your score with your GPA or improve it a little bit. There’s a really interesting balance that you have to get between your SAT or ACT scores and your GPA. You don’t want to be the kid that has straight A’s and sends in kind of a mediocre score. At that point, you might not want to send your scoring at all. Right?
0:01:58: If you are the kind of kid who has, you know, C’s class and crushes and pops a 33 or 34 on the ACT, that’s going to indicate that maybe you’re not living up to your potential in high school, because that’s what colleges are likely to think. So it’s certainly worth looking at the SAT and ACT as scores that are going to help reinforce your high school performance or boost it a little bit so that your scores are a little bit higher than sort of that GPA range.
0:02:34: And the reason that I say this is that in the last couple of years, what we’ve seen with our students and college admissions is the ones who submit scores that are on par or a little bit better than their grades are getting in at a higher rate than kids who don’t submit scores. They still matter, right? They might not matter as much as they did. They certainly don’t. And you don’t need them to get into a good college.
0:02:56: But getting into college is a very competitive environment, certainly for the top schools. But even for schools on the second and third tier down, putting yourself at an advantage, even if it’s a little tiny advantage with a good solid SAT or ACT score, is going to work to your benefit.
0:03:13: Thank you for watching, and for more information you can go to our website for more videos on our blog or subscribe to our YouTube or Instagram feeds. And don’t forget, Aim Higher.
