CURRAN CAMPBELL: On April 13th it was announced that the SUNY system would permanently drop their SAT and ACT testing requirements. A local organization in Syracuse is not surprised by this announcement and feels that schools will get a more accurate representation of a student.
LEIGH PETRYSSYN: I think standardized testing too has been under scrutiny for a while as to really be a rubric of like okay, just because you got a 1500 on your SATs, does that make you a better student, opposed to somebody who got like a 1080. But that student that got a 1080 is a community activist, is involved in every single thing in school, it’s not one defining factor.
CURRAN CAMPBELL: A common theme from the folks at On Point for College told us that SAT and ACT testing was not something that was representative of academic potential success. That’s something that students here at SUNY Cortland generally agreed with.
STUDENT 1: Only took the SAT but I, it was like Aidan said, very stressful and I feel like honestly for students coming in, I feel like it’s very beneficial for us not to have that stress. And that like long of a test I know I get very stressed taking tests and you might not perform as well and it doesn’t show you as a true student.
STUDENT 2: Like I know some really smart kids who like got really bad scores and they really had to take it again, and you have to pay to take the test, I don’t really believe in that test so dropping it I think is a really good thing.
CURRAN CAMPBELL: According to an Inside Higher Ed report from 2021, more than 75 percent of colleges and universities do not require taking the SAT or ACT. With this change coming to the SUNY system, the college application process will look different from here on out. Curran Campbell, NCC News.
Cortland, N.Y. (NCC News) — The SUNY System has announced that from here on out, that submitting ACT and SAT test scores will no longer be required for high school students that are applying to system schools.
Previously, the requirement that applicants submit their SAT and ACT test scores had been temporarily suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the system has decided to permanently get rid of the requirement.
Leigh Petryssyn, Director of College Success at On Point for College, said that schools dropping testing requirements would allow schools to get a more holistic view of incoming students and applicants.
“I think standardized testing too has been under scrutiny for a while as to really be a rubric of like okay, just because you got a 1500 on your SATs, does that make you a better student, opposed to somebody who got like a 1080,” said Petryssyn. “But that student that got a 1080 is a community activist, is involved in every single thing in school, it’s not one defining factor.”
Students at SUNY Cortland were generally in agreement with that message. Students at the school reported that test anxiety, poor test taking skills, and financial limitations are just some reasons that they feel that SAT and ACT test scores were not representative of a student’s capabilities.
According to an Inside Higher Ed report from 2021, more than 75 percent of colleges and universities do not require applicants to submit ACT and SAT test scores.
