Standardized Testing in the Modern Landscape 

By: Assistant Director of the Upper School & Director of College Guidance Kerri Small P ’26 

Students are applying to college in an era of ever-increasing application numbers, epic grade inflation, and excessive posturing. And so, while it can seem overwhelming to have to layer testing on top of an already busy academic schedule, I encourage my students to prep hard and test often. Why? Strong test scores never hurt any student in the college admissions process. Quite the opposite, in fact.  

Test scores offer colleges an additional metric of an applicant’s strength.  A strong test score coupled with a strong grade point average says more about an applicant’s strength than does a strong grade point average alone. Weak scores, on the other hand, can absolutely hurt a student’s chances of being admitted to colleges that value testing.  

Students and families need clarity on the subject of standardized testing because the message about it shifted at the onset of the pandemic and is now shifting again. Whereas many colleges and universities had been practicing a form of test optional admission for decades prior to COVID-19, many more were forced into waiving test scores as an admissions requirement when testing centers (high schools) closed during the pandemic. After several years of maintaining an optional test policy, a growing number of colleges and universities are returning to requiring the SAT or ACT of their applicants. They want the data to be able to better predict student success and outcomes.   

Testing is coming back, not everywhere and not right away, but it’s happening, notably among larger schools and the most selective ones. And while I hate to see it happen, because character traits mean more to me than numbers, I must embrace it and so do current and future college applicants.  

As such, here is my advice on how to prepare for the college admission testing piece and how to set yourself up for success: 

• Take a practice SAT and ACT in the latter part of your sophomore year.   

• Let your results from those practice tests guide your choice of test going forward.  

• Sign up for an official SAT or ACT well before the national testing date to secure a seat at a local test center, for example, sign up in September or October for your December test.  

• Pursue test prep (self-guided, a class, one-on-one). 

• Test. 

• Sign up . . .Prep . . . Test . . . 

• When you create your college list, identify the testing policy for each school on your list. Testing Required? Testing Preferred? Test-Optional? Test Blind? 

• Identify the testing averages for the school on your college list.  

• Ask yourself, how do my scores match up with each’s school’s average? 

• Where testing is an optional component of the review process, submit your scores only if your scores are in the top 50% of the college’s testing average.   

• Lean on your college counseling to guide you. That’s why we’re here!  

These are just some general pointers. The last one is particularly important! Each student’s college process is unique because each student and their goals are different from that of their peers. Your college guidance team can help you strategize how to best make use of your test scores in your college admissions process.  

Help us get to know you and your goals, and we’ll do our best to guide you!