Hello Fellow Parent, and Welcome!
My unambiguous opinion
If you’ve read my book, College Admissions Cracked, you know I believe the policy of requiring an SAT or ACT for college admission should “go gentle into that good night.” The SAT and ACT are a burden on students’ mental health and your pocketbook, and these tests don’t do a thing to progress our children’s learning. The test-optional movement was going so well. Avoiding the busywork and stress of taking standardized tests was a silver lining of the pandemic. And yet…
Some highly selective universities are not test-optional anymore.
MIT reinstated their standardized testing requirement for admission, and I wasn’t particularly worried. I lost a night of sleep when Dartmouth reinstated their standardized testing requirement for admission and Yale followed suit soon after. When Harvard added their name to schools requiring an SAT or ACT for admission this year, my spirit died a little bit. Now Cornell has announced that students who apply for admission in 2025-2026 will once more need to submit test scores. This year’s applicants to Cornell get a pass (but not really). I’m bereft. And yet…
Most colleges are still test optional.
You realize there are over 1800 colleges that remain test optional, right? You know that never taking an SAT or ACT is a real option for your test-weary kid muddling through the college admissions process, correct? Go to Fairtest.org (my heroes) for a complete list. The freedom to opt out of standardized admission testing is not dead!
The upshot
If your child wants to apply to an Ivy League university or other highly selective college, they need to take the SAT or ACT. I’m afraid my heart will burst for all the students who will jeopardize their mental health, study countless hours, and take those tests three, four, seven times for a 3% to 6% chance of admission into one of these handful of schools. I cannot think of worse odds to enter any competition beyond the Olympic trials or the Powerball lottery. Still, letting your child take the lead means supporting their hopes and dreams. If being that supportive parent necessitates that standardized testing enters your family’s life, I 100% get it.
The latest on the ACT and SAT
March was a big month for the college admissions testing industry. Here’s the latest scoop:
ACT Update: Your child can now choose between taking the old-fashioned paper version of the test or a digital version (exactly the same as the paper test, only online). While the test itself remains the same as always, last month the company was purchased by a private equity firm. Now the ACT has changed their tax status from nonprofit to a for profit “public benefit corporation.” So far, this should have no effect on your kid, but now you’re in the know.
SAT Update: As of last month, the SAT test has gone from paper-optional to an exclusively digital delivery system. The College Board has made the SAT a little shorter and uses “adaptive” scoring to assess its new digital version. The College Board will have you believe that their changes are revolutionary, but the advice in College Admissions Cracked remains pretty much the same.
Tips for the supportive parent of a student taking the ACT or SAT
Your kid needs to study for either test to make it worth their time and your funding of this endeavor. (As in the past, this sacrificed study time will prove useless for all other knowledge beyond how to game this particular test, but here we are.) I suggest the following steps:
- Help your kid choose which test to take (see advice in College Admissions Cracked about how to choose).
- Sit down with your child and a calendar and choose a convenient test date. Here are ACT test dates, and here are SAT test dates for 2024.
- Take advantage of your teenager’s rapt attention to that open calendar, and make a study plan leading up to the chosen test date. College Admissions Cracked provides more details about the benefits of using online DIY resources, courses, or tutors, depending on your child’s self-discipline and your budget.
Then no nagging necessary. If your child is serious about doing well on the test, they will follow the study plan and study for it. If your child chooses other endeavors instead of studying for the test, you can relax because thanks to those 1800+ test-optional colleges, the resulting sub-par test scores will not be life-or-death.
This month’s Sanity Saver
This piece in New York Magazine, Childhood Independence is a Mental Health Issue, places hypervigilant parenting right up there with the pandemic and social media as a major contributor to children’s poor mental health.
I’ve included it here as reassurance that despite all the external pressures you face, trying to be a chill parent throughout the college admissions process is one of the very best strategies to do right by your kid.
Warmly,
Jill
