The COVID-19 pandemic forced universities to stop requiring standardized tests and now, as some elite schools begin to require them again, students must grapple with a different SAT dilemma: is it worth the time and energy to take the test, and what score is high enough to submit in an application?
It's an especially difficult dilemma for students in California, where the University of California and California State University systems don't allow students to submit standardized test scores for undergraduate admissions and most private colleges remain test-optional.
At Stanford University, which has been a test-optional school since the pandemic, the median SAT score reported among incoming freshmen in 2023 was 1540. At the University of Southern California, the median was 1490. But what do these scores mean when only select students — likely those with the highest marks — take the SATs and submit their results in a test-optional admissions world?
The Chronicle collected data on standardized test scores for a select group of California colleges to show how test-optional policies have changed and what the current benchmarks are at each school.
Huge change in who takes SAT
Across the state, far fewer high schoolers take standardized tests now compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic, when colleges were forced to go "test-optional" — where students have the option to submit scores but are not required to — or "test-blind" — where students cannot include scores in admissions applications.
While nearly 70% of California high schoolers who graduated in the spring of 2020 had taken the SAT at least once, only a quarter in the class of 2023 did so.
An even smaller share of students submit their scores to colleges. In 2023, about a third of SAT takers sent their results to at least one institution — an estimated 9% of California high school graduates that year. In contrast, more than three quarters of high school graduates in 2019 submitted their scores to colleges.
According to Irena Smith, a college admissions consultant who's been counseling students for the past 18 years, the students in her practice who take standardized tests these days are those looking to attend highly selective colleges.
In California, those include Stanford, USC and the Claremont colleges — schools that, despite being test-optional in recent years, have admitted students who did submit scores at higher rates than those applying without them, according to Smith.
Of course, scores submitted these days are much higher than in pre-COVID years because of the smaller and more targeted group of students who take the tests and send their results to colleges.
Across the state, the share of high schoolers who received an SAT score above 1200 increased by seven percentage points from 2019 to 2023. The share who scored above 1400 grew by five points over the same period.
When to submit a SAT score?
When it comes to submitting or omitting test scores in college applications, students with scores above a 1400 will undoubtedly include them, but for other students, "it's an excruciating guessing game," said Smith.
Take, for example, Stanford, where the overwhelming majority of first-years admitted with test results in 2023 scored higher than 1400 on the SAT. The data reported by Stanford does not break down scores above 1400, but according to Smith, who worked at Stanford admissions between 1999 to 2004, the target score they looked for was a combined 1500, with a minimum of 700 in each section.
For students with more middling scores — like those in the 1300 range — it's an impossible decision. They can either submit their sub-par scores or not submit them and run the risk of having the admissions staff think their scores are lower, said Smith.
It's a similar case for the other highly-selective colleges and universities. Gwen Meyer, a college and career specialist at Alameda High School, tells students who plan to apply to these schools to treat standardized tests as added requirements, similar to supplemental essays.
Still, at some highly selective universities, the majority of first-years are admitted without scores. For instance, at Pomona College, where just 7% of applicants were admitted in the 2023-24 cycle, less than a third of freshmen entering in the 2023 fall semester submitted their SAT score. USC and Claremont McKenna College similarly had a majority of first-years in 2023 admitted without SAT scores.
Data on scores at the UCs and CSUs is not available as they stopped requiring standardized test scores for undergraduate admissions. The two systems do, however, consider scores for course placement once students are admitted.
The transition to test optional at these schools has not only led to more consternation but also more competition. In recent years, colleges have received unprecedented numbers of applications as more students feel they have a better shot at admissions in a test-optional scenario.
The UC, for instance, received a record number of applications for fall 2021 admission after it stopped requiring standardized test scores. UC Berkeley received 126,000 undergraduate applications for 2023-24 — up about 39,000 or 44% from 2019-20.
The California Institute of Technology, which has a similar test-blind policy, saw an increase of about 5,000 applications, or 57%, from 2019-20 to 2023-24 — all while the freshman class size remained roughly 250.
SAT chaos
Even without the dilemma around reporting scores, the SAT is already a major source of stress for high schoolers, with students devoting hours to studying for the exam and some families spending thousands of dollars on test prep and tutors.
For Bay Area students, however, the stress starts with registering for the SAT. A shortage of testing sites and issues around test administration have made it so difficult for Bay Area students to find a seat locally that many are traveling hundreds of miles to take the exams. The Mercury News found the August, October and November testing dates fully booked within 100 miles of San Jose and San Francisco.
As a result, Bay Area families are traveling to Fresno, Reno or even San Diego just to take the SATs, according to Meyer, the Alameda High college specialist.
"College admissions has turned from somewhat unpredictable to chaotic in the last few years," said Smith, the college admissions consultant, citing last year's FAFSA issues in addition to changes to standardized test requirements.
Now, some elite universities are requiring test scores again, as research has shown they more reliably predict success during and after college than high school grades because of grade inflation in recent years.
Stanford announced that it will resume requiring the SAT or ACT in undergraduate applications for fall 2026. Meanwhile, UC remains test-blind until at least 2025, in accordance with a settlement in a lawsuit claiming the tests illegally discriminate on race, wealth and disability.
Smith advises students with anxiety around a school's required test component to reconsider their college list because there are many excellent colleges that don't require test scores.
The organization FairTest maintains a database of colleges that are test-optional or test-free for the upcoming admissions cycle. You can also find data on test submission rates and score distributions for most U.S. higher education institutions by searching for the "Common Data Set" for a given institution.
© 2024 the San Francisco Chronicle. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
