FairTest keeps an up-to-date list of the colleges and universities that do not require SAT or ACT scores. The current number stands around 850 institutions, and every year more schools join the test-optional movement. This is good news for students who feel that standardized test scores fail to measure accurately their preparedness for college. The flurry of test cheating scandals this past year gives even more energy to the push towards test-optional admissions, as do abuses such as Claremont McKenna's inflation of SAT data.
SAT Book Burning
-Marlith- / Flickr
While most of the country's top-ranked colleges and universities don't appear on the list, more and more selective colleges are making the move to test-optional admissions (for example, Wake Forest, Pitzer, Bowdoin, DePaul, and Mount Holyoke are all test-optional).
To learn more, check out this article on test-optional colleges, and visit the FairTest website to see the complete list of test-optional colleges.
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Comments
815 sounds like a very big number. However, I wonder what percent of the nations top 100 colleges/universities subscribe to this ‘no SAT/ACT’ policy. That statistic would also be interesting for the top 200 and top 300 schools.
LOL! Sounds like “850 colleges are super desperate for students” and are going to get hit hard by the decreasing amount of college applicants for the next 10 years!
Go to community college and transfer to top universities.
In fact, more than 120 colleges and universities ranked in the “top tier” of their categories by U.S. News & World Report have test-optional or test-flexible admissions policies. That list includes 36 of the nation’s top 100 liberal arts colleges
I think it’s interesting that Wake Forest doesn’t require the scores for admissions but does require you to submit them if you are accepted and enrolled. The good scores get reported to US News?
They would report all the qualifying scores they receive to U.S. News (for all schools, students who are admitted through opportunity programs, special talent, and other special designations are often not reported). But there are many reasons a school might want the scores: academic advisers have additional information related to their advisees; scores are often used for course placement; some programs (such as NCAA athletics) require scores; and so on.