What to Know About SAT and SAT Subject Test Changes
Last week, The College Board announced the retirement of two (generally) optional components of the SAT experience: the SAT essay (effective in June 2021) and SAT Subject Tests (effective immediately). As a result, the two questions on any high school student’s mind are likely: 1. “Why?” and 2. “What does this mean for me?” Here’s what you should know:
The good news
The College Board’s announcement is good news. The optional sections of high-stakes exams—and optional tests in their entirety, like subject tests—can sound to the adults who create them like student-friendly initiatives. After all, the choice is yours! But to students, it’s easy for that option to sound like a series of trick questions: “Is it really optional, or will I be penalized for not taking it? But if I take it and don’t score as high as on the rest of my exam, will I effectively be penalized for taking it?” Conscientious, motivated students are left trying to play mind-readers with the time and energy that they could have spent studying for the sections that really do matter. Optional sections and optional tests may sound friendly, but at best, they add to decision fatigue. In many cases, they just add more anxiety to an already stressful period.
With this decision, college applicants are absolved of several stressful decisions and are given a healthy amount of time back. The time that would have been spent writing SAT sample essays, studying for subject tests, and Googling “Should I take the optional SAT essay?” — a question that, here at Varsity Tutors, we’re asked far more often than “How can I succeed on the SAT essay?” — can be put toward focusing on the application criteria that really matter.
For those students who still feel a bit of stress given that taking an essay — via the ACT — is still an option, don’t worry. The SAT couldn’t have made this move without the knowledge that colleges would happily accept the essay-less SAT on par with the essay-optional ACT. So while ACT test-takers still have that pesky “optional” decision to make, anyone deciding between the tests doesn’t need to worry: you won’t be penalized for taking the essay-free SAT.
The better news
The ACT is now on the clock to respond with a student-friendly move. The obvious one is to drop the ACT essay. It’s also optional and doesn’t affect your overall score, and the SAT’s move tells us that colleges are perfectly happy to accept tests without an essay score. But even if not, recent history across the world of admissions-based standardized testing shows us that it’s a giant competition toward attracting more examinees via policies and innovations that make things easier on students.
The ACT’s superscore policy, for example, was a student-friendly announcement that likely didn’t receive its fair due as the pandemic overshadowed all things assessment in 2020. In the world of graduate school, the GMAT was shortened and gave students the ability to choose section order — mainly because it was getting increased competition from the GRE, and both exams have announced that their “at home” programs are here to stay even post-pandemic. When two or more exams are accepted on par by admissions officers, the competition for test-takers means that students win, and the ACT now bears the burden of being the only college admissions test with an essay. So look for the ACT to either axe the essay or create another student-friendly initiative to continue to look favorable in comparison.
Why is this happening?
While it may feel to students like they have very little power in the admissions process, as an overall group, they have all the power. Colleges need both students and applicants: enough students to fill the dorms and classroom seats (and collect the room, board, and tuition for them) and enough applicants to have the scarcity to charge those high rates and to look prestigious because not just anyone can get in. When students aren’t applying — whether it’s fewer schools per applicant or fewer students applying overall — colleges go through the same calculations as websites and mobile apps: look for and remove the unnecessary decisions and hurdles that cause people to drop off.
The essay is an obvious one. It was always optional because very few schools truly cared, and because it was optional, it became a burden on schools that required it — a student considering six schools, only one of which required the essay, might have just as much incentive to trim his list to five than to pay the extra fee and take the extra time to complete the essay at a school that he wasn’t that likely to attend anyway. So with fewer and fewer colleges requiring the essay, knowing that the requirement was costing them at least some applications, The College Board had an opportunity to remove that friction and gain an advantage over the ACT — precisely at a time when test-taker volume has waned too.
The subject tests were also inevitable. Again, they were optional and on the brink of becoming more so as schools eliminate friction. And The College Board isn’t giving up entirely on subject-level assessment: as the owner of the Advanced Placement tests, it can now double down on those, which were always preferred by students because of the chance to earn college credit. In a world where testing volume has been declining and both admissions offices and testing agencies have to get student-friendlier to stall or reverse that trend, The College Board can now shift that same examinee pool and its own internal resources toward AP. And, remember, the AP had a rough May of 2020 as it rushed to market the at-home versions of its exams to stay ahead of pandemic closures, so facing another likely need to do the same, it only makes sense that The College Board has incentive to remove hurdles and friction that stand in its own way too.
What’s next for high school students?
The College Board’s recent decisions are good news, but how do you make it good news you can use? 12th graders, if you had any plans to take an SAT Subject Test this spring, you can now put all your effort toward AP tests. 9th and 10th graders, you should plan out your upcoming class schedules to include AP classes so that you can use them to demonstrate academic rigor on your transcripts, and so that you can use the test results for college credit.
As for the ACT vs. SAT dilemma, you’re in a great position to let them continue to develop student-friendly policies as they compete for your time and registration fee. 11th graders, this decision affects you the most as it may alter some of your plans. But, remember, it’s great news. For you:
Decide on the SAT or ACT based on factors like your own preference. Take practice tests to see where you’re likely to score higher and where you feel more comfortable with timing and format. Also weigh convenience (when and where they’re offered, which date gives you the best study runway leading up, etc.).
If the ACT is the best choice for you, pay attention to how your target schools message the optional essay; some may well announce that although they used to require one, they simply won’t or can’t even have a preference now that it’s not even an option for the SAT. Until you know that your target schools won’t even consider the essay, a good rule of thumb is this — if you’re a great writer, write the essay as a chance to show that off. If you’re not, consider skipping it since a great many applicants won’t have an essay either.
Brian Galvin is the Chief Academic Officer at Varsity Tutors.