![\"Hundreds](\"http:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/sat2.jpg\")
<\/a>Hundreds of colleges and universities no longer require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. While that doesn\u2019t mean high school student-athletes shouldn\u2019t take them — National Scouting Report recommends they take both — it does mean that many schools will accept students who don\u2019t reveal their scores.<\/p>\n
Why, you ask?<\/p>\n
Perhaps the biggest reason is diversity. Many colleges would like to increase their number of minority students, who traditionally have struggled with college entrance exams. There\u2019s also a correlation between family income and standardized test performance: The higher the income, the higher the score.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe test-optional policy should strengthen and diversify an already outstanding pool and will broaden access for those high-achieving students who have historically been underrepresented at selective colleges and universities, including students of color, first-generation students and students from low-income households,\u201d Laurie Kohler, an admissions representative from George Washington University, said in a story published by NPR.org.<\/p>\n
But those aren\u2019t the only reasons.<\/p>\n
Test-optional schools likely will increase their number of applicants, which will allow them to reject more students. That, according to a story in The Hechinger Report, makes those schools look more selective in the annual college rankings released by U.S. News and World Report.<\/p>\n
Of course, many applicants still submit SAT and ACT scores to test-optional schools. However, those students are usually the ones who score high. That could artificially inflate a school\u2019s average test scores, which again could help that school in the college rankings.<\/p>\n
A study of 180 liberal arts schools by former University of Georgia doctoral student Andrew Belasco — \u201cThe Test-Optional Movement at America\u2019s Selective Liberal Arts Colleges: A Boon for Equity or Something Else?\u201d — found there was no significant evidence suggesting the slightest bump in diversity.<\/p>\n
However, others disagree.<\/p>\n
Bill Hiss, former head of admissions at prestigious Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, said his school\u2019s test-optional policy has had a major impact on diversity. But it took time, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cBates has had an optional testing policy for 30 years, and we\u2019ve seen the changes,\u201d Hiss said in the NPR.org story. \u201cThey\u2019re dramatic, but they happened on a kind of long, steady uphill slope rather than some dramatic change in two or three years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the rise of test-optional schools, NSR encourages high student-athletes to take the SAT and ACT at least twice each.<\/p>\n
For one thing, most colleges and universities still require applicants to submit standardized test scores, so college prospects shouldn\u2019t limit themselves only to the smaller percentage that don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
For another, most colleges don\u2019t require both standardized test scores. If a student-athlete does well in both, he\/she can submit both scores. If that prospect only does well in one, he\/she can submit only that score.<\/p>\n
Either way, student-athletes only need to submit their highest SAT or ACT score. Therefore, it\u2019s to their advantage to keep taking the exams.<\/p>\n
However, if they don\u2019t well on either, they still have the option of applying to test-optional schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Good news for high school student-athletes who bombed out on the college entrance exams or are scared to death to take them. While attending a two-day college fair this week, I discovered more and more colleges and universities \u2013 including some of the most prestigious private schools in the country \u2013 have become test-optional. Hundreds … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[484,222,483,613],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10256"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10263,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10256\/revisions\/10263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsr-inc.com\/scouting-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}