SUNY drops SAT, ACT admission requirement
NEW YORK - New York institutions are slowly moving away from standardized testing for potential students.
In a memorandum on Tuesday, The State University of New York (SUNY) said that it would continue the test-optional guidelines that were first introduced during the height of the Coronavirus Pandemic.
SUNY campuses have historically used SAT and ACT scores to help determine acceptance. Test scores along with grades, and academic achievements have long been seen as the only way to predict the potential success of a candidate for admission.
In June 2020, SUNY first announced that it would be temporarily suspending the requirement that students submit SAT and ACT exam scores for the 2021 year.
They would continue the suspension again in June 2021, January 2022 and now 2023 indefinitely.
In the decision, SUNY stated: "Public higher education systems across the country as well as institutions of high education throughout New York State have increasingly moved to maintain such policies prospectively instead of returning to mandatory submission of SAT and ACT exam scores for admission purposes…"
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The H. Carl McCall SUNY Building, Albany, N.Y., June 24, 2021. (Governor's Press Office)
Students will still be able to submit their scores if available, but it will no longer be a university requirement.
SUNY also sighted research from the Rockefeller Institute of Government that found that colleges in New York State and across the country are moving towards making the Pandemic-era policy permanent.
They also mentioned that fewer New York State high school students are taking the SAT, especially among historically underrepresented groups.
SUNY notes that since giving the students the option to submit standardized test scores, the retention rate gap between test-takers and non-test takers has remained the same or in some cases, shrunk.
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In March, Columbia University was the first Ivy League school to make standardized tests optional.
According to Fairtest—an organization that advocates against the misuse and overuse of standardized tests—more than 80% of U.S. bachelor-degree granting institutions are not requiring students seeking fall 2023 admission to submit either ACT or SAT standardized exam scores.