During the past couple of years, it has been thoroughly debated whether the SAT, the Scholastic Assessment Test, was a practical, fair, or successful way of evaluating students’ capabilities. The SAT, as it stood, had been one of the most important aspects of a college application, whether that person was from the US or outside of it. However, in the past couple of years, it has been proposed that this way of assessing students has many flaws, therefore encouraging colleges to come up with new strategies of making the selection process. In addition to this, the sudden appearance of the coronavirus only sped this process up. Because of the circumstances that we are in today, most of the colleges have deemed the SAT unnecessary, and even further, giving it as much as no value.
This is due to the circumstances that have fallen upon us, where a lot of SAT tests were canceled and a lot of students lost their chances to take the exam. This means that most of the universities have set their college application statuses to Test-Optional, since a lot of students could not take the SAT test during the pandemic, this also means that writing the SAT gives one no advantage over another student who in fact did not write the standardized test. It has also been confirmed that students no longer need the SAT to get into the University of California, and it will remain that way even after the pandemic. Some colleges have even gone Test-Blind, which means that they don’t consider any SAT or ACT scores whatsoever.
To get a sense of what the current GZAAT students thought of the changes that were made, we interviewed some Juniors and Seniors of our school. Their answers differed a lot.
A group of students still believe that the way they approach their college applications is based on getting good scores on the SAT. Students are, in fact, still preparing for the SAT exams and plan to keep taking them to get scores that they are happy with. We also have to take note that very few universities still require standardized test scores .
Another group of students keep practicing for the SAT, but have shifted their main focuses to other things necessary for their applications. These are extracurricular activities, such as clubs and volunteering. They are working on themselves in different aspects outside of school, and of course working on their college essays.
However, some of the students have completely given up on writing the SAT.
As things stand, not even the colleges know what is going to happen in the following years. The future of college applications is still uncertain, and so is the relevance of the SAT. While students should still think about their SATs, it’s more important to focus on other parts of the application - extracurricular activities, clubs and projects. Keep their grades up, and work hard.
Edited by Lika Gegenava
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