What Does "Test Optional" Really Mean in the COVID-19 Era?

Parenting a high school junior through coronavirus, school closures, and social distancing is indeed a strange experience. But in the midst of this upheaval, one thing is certain: your college-bound student will still apply to and attend college.

While the path to this goal will look and feel different from the paths of the classes before and after your child’s, it nonetheless leads to college. And because the spring of a college applicant’s junior year is generally the time to buckle down on the ACT/SAT, let’s talk about standardized testing and how it’s changed in light of COVID-19.

The big news: the March, April, and May test dates for the ACT and SAT have been cancelled, and the June tests are still up in the air. Accordingly, there have been a handful of colleges, including the massive University of California system (think Berkeley and UCLA) that have recently decided that the class of 2021 will be “test optional.” This list will likely grow in the coming months. 

This decision makes a lot of sense when you consider that several of the prime test-taking months are no longer available to families. Students must also adjust to online classes and a “new normal.” We all—including admissions offices—need to be as flexible, compassionate, and community-minded as possible during this crisis. (That’s always been true, by the way—now it’s just staring us in the face.)

This post will dive deep into the details, so let’s begin with an executive summary for those readers who want a quick synopsis before heading to the action items at the end: 

Given current events, distance learning, cancelled extracurriculars, shortened online AP exams, and diminished contact with teachers, the ACT and SAT—even if they are labeled “optional” by some—will be more important than ever for the class of 2021. These standardized exams will provide the most recognized, tried-and-true, and “objective” metrics for college admissions officers.

Why? Let’s consider these factors: the elements of a college application, in rough order of importance; how they are (or are not) affected by current events; and what that means for your student in the coming months.

College application elements

• High school transcript

• ACT/SAT score

• AP scores

• Extracurricular activities

• College essays

• Teacher recommendations

The high school transcript

The transcript has always been an opaque and hard-to-interpret document for college admissions officers. Some schools rarely give As, while other schools hand them out like candy. This school has lots of APs, while that school has none. This school gives letter grades, while that school gives number grades. This all makes the job of comparing transcripts from one school to another very challenging—it’s rarely apples-to-apples.

This has now been made even more challenging! Online school is totally uncharted territory, and nobody can be certain of the level of rigor or of how teachers will give “fair” grades to students, some of whom don’t even have access to dependable internet and a quiet place to study. Junior year is typically a major focus of the transcript, with this current semester standing as the last full term before applications are submitted. But this year, spring term grades are an even more watered down measure of academic quality.

ACT/SAT score

We’ll cover this element later, once we’ve addressed the others. But remember: traditionally, these are the second most important thing on an application, close behind the transcript.

AP scores 

Many admissions officers count on AP exams to provide a somewhat objective and universal assessment of your child’s academic skills, as they are graded either by a computer or by subject experts in an office in New Jersey––people who have no relationship with the student (unlike classroom teachers, who see your student every day) and who grade the same tests year after year. It’s not perfect, but it’s standardized and gives a more objective view of a student’s mastery in an academic discipline.

As you might already know, 2020 AP exams will be 45 minutes long, will contain free-response questions only, and will be taken at home over the internet. The rigor, length, and security of these tests will be diminished, and colleges will have no choice but to treat them as less important than they have in the past. APs definitely still matter, but this year they won’t be the standard they have been since the ‘50s when they were established.

Extracurriculars

Colleges want to know that applicants are doing something other than sitting inside studying and spending time on the internet. But that’s all anybody is doing right now. Sports and clubs are cancelled for this semester, and their importance as part of the college application is thus somewhat diminished. 

College essays

This is one part of the application that will be relatively unchanged by current events. Your child will still need to write thoughtful, creative, and compelling college essays. But this is not something your family has to think about or begin until the school year is over. Most students start this process in June, July, or August, and that is typically plenty of time.

Teacher recommendations

These are a vital part of your child’s application for the colleges that require them (most top colleges do). A good teacher recommendation is usually from a junior year teacher—10th grade is ancient history, and senior year teachers barely know your student by the time the letter needs to be submitted. A good recommender is someone who knows your child well and is intimately familiar with their work and their class contributions. A great relationship allows for a great recommendation. The shift to online school will make these relationships harder to build and these great recommendations harder to write. Colleges know this and will, understandably and fairly, give less weight to teacher recommendations in this admissions cycle.

To a college admissions officer, most of the elements of a college application––transcripts, AP exam scores, teacher recommendations, and extracurriculars––must be considered in a very different context this year… so what’s a junior to do?  

Given the factors discussed above, a good SAT or ACT score is more important than ever.  Yes, these tests are not perfect, and yes, the April and May exams have been cancelled, and yes, some colleges are going test optional in the midst of the current crisis, but for your student and college admissions officers, the ACT or SAT is and has always been the only thing that everyone takes. It’s the one universal, objective metric that allows colleges to compare students from different high schools, from different parts of the country, and at schools with different levels of course rigor. That’s why top colleges continue to use it. To help them do their job, they need something that’s the same for everyone and something that’s consistent enough that they inherently understand it.

The only two application components that are unchanged this year are test scores and application essays. And, fortunately, those are the two things that your child has the most control over between now and application due dates. Here’s what your student should be doing:

1. Take care of themselves. 

These are tough times. Help your child develop good habits while your family has the time to look at and change old patterns.

2. Keep those grades up.  

Remote learning can be a challenge at first, and your student should do what they need to do in order to keep their grades as high as possible. This includes organizing their workload, taking study breaks, and asking teachers, parents, competent friends, or tutors for help. We are living in an increasingly online world, and many of the scholastic online protocols and resources put in place during this crisis will not go away. Your child must learn how to learn online, because that’s the way the educational and professional worlds are headed, even after this crisis has passed.

3. Get that SAT or ACT score up.  

Now is a time when many students have time on their hands, which is rare for a high school junior. As of April 16, the June ACT/SAT is on. The College Board and ACT are considering adding extra test dates this summer and fall. One way or another, your child will have a chance to take the SAT or ACT, and as discussed above, this score matters this year more than ever. Slow and steady wins the race for test prep, so your student is much better off starting now and doing a little bit each week than they are waiting until summer, when hopefully we will all be outside doing things again!

4. Think outside the box for extracurricular activities (and application topics).  

Now is the time to get creative. What does your child miss doing the most with friends? Is there a way they can replicate, even imperfectly, that experience online together? Of course there is no substitute for the real thing, but history shows us that we are willing to accept lower quality experiences if they are more convenient. Often these presumably second-rate experiences take on the unique characteristics of the new medium and develop into previously unimagined fields unto themselves. Think of recorded music. Of course I wish the Beatles were in my living room playing live to me, but since that’s impossible for a number of reasons, I‘m fine with a good recording (which––as a bonus––allows musicians to do things they could never do live). So what can your kid do in terms of extracurricular activities that they could “never do live?” And how can they––as a young, strong, healthy member of society––be of service to their community during this crisis?  

Keep in mind, too, that everyone they’re competing against for spots at their dream school is going through COVID-19 quarantines right now, so everyone will think at some point that this experience of pushing through a crazy, turbulent time will make a great application essay topic. And they’ll all sound the same. Virtually no one should write about coronavirus quarantine in their application essays! (Unless your child can find a way to make the experience truly unique and inspiring.) Be creative, be innovative, and perhaps they’ll come up with activities unique enough to write about without sounding just like everyone else. 

5. Make the most of distance learning this spring.  

Students should cultivate, as best they can, relationships with teachers. If they’re great at a subject, maybe they can offer to help struggling students with some online help sessions. Make the most of this new educational medium. Coronavirus will go away, but online education will not.

Remember: the headline of this story is that your child will apply to and get into college. This is all uncharted territory for everyone––teachers, students, parents, and admissions officers––but they’re all working in the same direction, and that is to get the class of 2021 on to campuses full of knowledge and full of promise. 

Since the path to college is different this year, it pays to be strategic and to think about your student’s competitive advantages. Everyone’s stuck at home without extracurriculars; if you spend your family time innovatively, that will stand out. The SAT and ACT are the only uncompromised, objective measures that admissions officers have to look at—your kid has time to study and practice, so put that time to work. And those essays give your student a chance to stand out, so avoid the temptation to write “another coronavirus story.” New territory can be challenging and sometimes scary, but it’s also new, which offers unprecedented opportunities for creativity.

This article was jointly written by members of the admissions consulting team at Veritas Prep, a subsidiary of Varsity Tutors. Veritas Prep’s admissions consulting team features former admissions officers from elite colleges across the country.