In the months immediately following the COVID-19 outbreak, it wasn't just families making difficult decisions about postsecondary education - colleges were doing the same thing. Headlines filled the mainstream media outlets, insinuating that the days of standardized assessments were limited as more and more colleges and universities waived the ACT/SAT score submission requirement for admission. In fact, some schools, like the University of California system boldly signaled that they were moving away from the ACT/SAT requirement. If you clicked on that link above, however, you would see that the school still accepting the scores, and even references that students with higher scores will be given preferential enrollment for distinct programs and colleges.
The truth is, ACT and SAT scores are only going to become MORE important to level the playing field for all students. Unfortunately, the mainstream peddling of the "dying standardized test" fallacy is only serving to create a larger gap between the haves and the have-nots! A recent article from The Atlantic referenced the fact that students were still taking the exams at similar rates to the pre-COVID assessment period. The fact is, however, the updated numbers in the post-COVID analysis will reveal the devastating effects of high schools who abandoned the universal administration of the exams in the spring. The numbers will reveal the renewed disparity between the classes created by a misleading take on the collegeiate response.
