Tests now optional
UConn will not require students seeking undergraduate admission in 2021, 2022 and 2023 to take the SAT or ACT. The waiving of the standardized tests is an experiment to study whether requiring them influences student success rates and increases access to talented students.
UConn said Wednesday it will not require students seeking undergraduate admission in 2021, 2022 and 2023 to take the SAT or ACT as part of the admissions process.
The waiving of the requirement for the standardized tests is an experiment and the university will study whether not requiring the tests influences student success rates and increases access to talented students who otherwise face barriers associated with the tests.
The plan was announced during the UConn Board of Trustees’ Academic Affairs Committee meeting Wednesday morning.
The university had been considering whether to try a testoptional admissions process, but the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the decision to move forward with the three-year pilot program. High school students have varying access to online learning, preparation for the SAT and ACT and conducive testing environments, the university said.
Daniel D. Toscano, the chairman of UConn’s board of trustees, called the experiment “a good thing born out of this crisis.”
Students seeking admission can still submit SAT and/or ACT results, but the test will have no impact on the decision to admit the student.
Making standardized tests optional was already in the works, UConn Trustee Jeanine Gouin said, but was accelerated because of the pandemic.
“This different, more holistic process is really expected to open the door for underrepresented yet highly qualified and highpotential undergraduate candidates,” she said.
The move will also make the process more fair for those who don’t have access to testing preparation programs, who struggle taking tests and people for whom English is not their first language, Gouin said.
“This is kind of forced on us because so many of our applicants won’t have a chance to take the SAT,” added UConn President Thomas Katsouleas. “It’s an opportunity that may be a benefit to the university.”
The pandemic has prompted many colleges to go test-optional for 2021 admissions. Students entering colleges and universities this fall have mostly completed the admissions process.
The College Board and ACT canceled the March and June testing dates due to the pandemic, and both testing agencies are developing alternatives so that high school students can take the exams online or this fall.
In making the tests optional for three years, UConn joins about 70 colleges and universities that have gone the same route, largely as a result of the pandemic. But there are other issues.
“UConn has always prided itself on the holistic review, which never has relied on a single data point in the evaluation of applicants,” Vern Granger, UConn’s director of undergraduate admissions, said in a written statement. “With the move to test-optional, we feel that applicants will now have the confidence to present themselves in the best way possible, without the fear of misevaluation due to not performing as well as they hoped on the SAT or ACT. As we look to bring together the next great class of Huskies, this shift will allow us to review important personal qualities and characteristics, along with academic and personal accomplishments in even greater detail.”
Research has shown that test scores are highly correlated to income, and there are disparities between the scores of white and Asian students and African American and Hispanic/Latinx students. Those disparities have been highlighted by the Varsity Blues admissions scandal that has resulted in the arrests of college employees and wealthy parents accused of paying bribes to enable their children to cheat on the standardized tests.
There are also questions about whether students applying to college would have equal access and the ability to properly prepare for the tests given the inequity of conditions under which students are now studying core subjects, which are a significant part of the standardized tests.
UConn said it has studied the issue internally over the past several years, finding that while students who score very highly on the SAT and ACT tend to be successful at very high levels, the scores are not correlated to success at other ranges. “Simply put, many lowscoring applicants also had successful academic careers, though judging them only on their standardized test scores wouldn’t have predicted it,” the university said.
“Ultimately, it is our hope this move will result in an even more diverse and inclusive applicant pool, which provide us a greater opportunity to build a community of students that reflect the breadth and depth of our institution,” Granger said.