“SAT Exam NOT Mandatory”: American Universities Says

SAT exam scores were previously a mandatory requirement for any candidate to secure admission in most of the US universities. But, most of them are waiving off this requirement, by introducing test-optional policies. Recently, more and more colleges and universities have announced that they will not require scores of SAT Singapore exam for the admission. Although if candidates want, they can submit it.

What is the SAT Exam?

The SAT judges students on four different areas that include assessment of maths, reading, writing and language. For students from non-English backgrounds, SAT exam Singapore used to be a mandatory requirement to process the college application process forward. To help candidates get into the college, many SAT classes Singapore are working day and night.

However, colleges/universities say that they have ruled out the requirement of SAT because offering admissions based on SAT score seemed unfair to the students. In many ways, it is so true because students who gave their best in higher secondary classes can ruin their chances if the SAT test day goes off. The test-optional policy was introduced to offer a fairer approach in the application consideration process. But, at present, it is also influenced due to the ongoing COVID pandemic.

At the beginning of 2020, months before the outbreak of Coronavirus, University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) finally confirmed that they will look at the SAT scores. Gradually, many universities made up their mind to follow the same, and now most of the American universities are saying NO to the SAT scores.

Top officials of the UMKC mentioned that they want to give a fair opportunity to the resilient and capable candidates to access higher education. Also, they mentioned it will not change the academic standards of universities in any manner.

Not only UMKC, but data collected from almost 28 institutions across the United States clearly suggested that test-optional policy will certainly increase the number of applications.

According to a report published by Forbes, a cheating scandal in the year 2019 played its major role in the widespread adoption of this new policy. In the same year, the National Center for Fair and Open testing suggested that above 1050 bachelor-degree-institutions will now evaluate all or most of the candidates, not based on their SAT exam's score.

Not only that but now COVID pandemic is also playing its major role to reconsider universities that haven't adopted test-optional policy. Even reports popped up suggesting SAT is getting online, but it's not the case. Now, it's pretty much confirmed that most of the college/universities are adopting this policy.

Unfortunately, this decision turns out to be the worst news for institutions offering SAT exam preparation courses. While the SAT exam is optional, students can still take it by enrolling themselves with some of the best online SAT course Singapore.

Note: SAT may be a requirement for many other colleges/universities without test-optional policy across the world including the United States. Thus, it’s recommended to enquire a bit more carefully.