Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the college application process is changing. More specifically, many schools are not requiring students to submit their standardized test scores from the ACT or SAT. This means that students can decide to submit their test scores or not based on whether they think it will help or hurt them.
Due to COVID precautions like the suspension of in-person learning, many students weren’t given the chance to take any standardized tests. This led to a massive increase in colleges offering a test-optional policy in 2020 and 2021; even top-ranked universities like Harvard and Yale opted in.
One of the greatest benefits of schools going test-optional is that it gives a broader range of students a better chance of getting accepted. In the past, many lower-income families have struggled with not being able to pay for tutors to help their child score in the top percentile, giving higher-income families an unfair advantage. Furthermore, not everyone performs well on standardized testing, so test-optional policies will level the playing field for everyone.
Because of test-optional policies, schools now have lower acceptance rates. Colleges are now receiving a substantial increase in total applicants. Since they generally accept the same amount of students each year, as the applicant pool increases, the acceptance rate decreases. This doesn’t mean much for students, but it can be intimidating.

“I think test-optional policies are amazing because standardized testing is not a true test of people’s intelligence, so test scores should not determine whether or not someone gets into college,” explained Senior Annabel Bean. “There are many other ways that colleges can learn about students, so having test-optional policies allows students to take advantage of those opportunities instead of being limited by their test scores.”
Senior Abby Gurvitz added, “I love test-optional. It makes the whole application process less stressful and it’s nice to know that colleges see you’re more than just a test score.”
However, it’s not only Berkley Students that feel this way. As shown by the influx of applicants to all test-optional schools, many students feel that a huge barrier has been lifted. In the future, standardized testing will likely become obsolete, and give students of all socioeconomic groups more equal opportunities in the college admissions process.