August 29 was supposed to be the day that 400,000 students took the SAT college entrance exam. But COVID-19 forced the closure of thousands of test sites, leaving nearly half the potential test takers, or 178,600 students, “SOL” (sh** out of luck).
Most U.S. students sit for the three-hour exam on designated weekend days at proctored sites inside school buildings.
Since the start of the pandemic The College Board, the nonprofit that owns the test, canceled test dates for more than 1 million students. While some students were able to take the test in March, the May and June test dates were cancelled.
In April, College Board CEO David Coleman announced that the organization hoped to offer an online SAT in September, but that plan was abandoned in early June.
Since the pandemic hit, more than 400 colleges and universities have waived, at least for the next year while testing is difficult, the SAT and its competitor, the ACT, for admissions. FairTest tracks those schools on its site.
When added to the schools that had previously adopted permanent test-optional policies, there are now 1,540 four-year colleges/universities that won’t require standardized tests for admission this fall.
FL BOG should make test optional
The test cancellations in March, May, and June, left many potential FAMU students who may have needed to retake the SAT/ACT to boost their test scores stranded, and scrambling to seek other college options, because the Florida Board of Governors (FBOG) did not make the test optional.
With recruitment season for the Class of 2025 in full-effect, and the uncertainty surrounding the SAT/ACT, the FBOG adopt a test optional policy admissions policy for Florida’s public universities, and waive some of the performance based-funding measures, during the pandemic.
High school juniors and seniors have a difficult time as it is in a completely normal school year. So, when there is a bunch going on in the world and no one knows what’s happening, it’s way more stressful.
“We heard crazy stories this summer of people traveling and driving 3 hours to get to some test center because nothing in their area was open, only to get there and have the test center closed,” said Lauren Lieberman, a guidance/college counselor at Winter Park High School in Winter Park, FL.
The change would provide some relief to students who couldn’t get a test scheduled, and give high school seniors one less way to stand out on the application.
Without the change, FAMU, and other Florida universities, would be disadvantaged as they began to focus their attention on making admissions offers to the freshman class of 2021.