What if my sat scores are low

In making this move, colleges have created a muddled middle ground that confuses applicants and makes some distrustful of the whole process. Indeed, even as the test-optional announcements were rolling out from universities this summer, something strange happened: Teenagers continued to sign up for the exams.

One of them was Julia Peldunas. Then another one was scrapped in late March, and so was a third try in June. The College Board, which oversees the SAT, said the cancellations in the spring displaced nearly a million juniors who, like Peldunas, planned to take the exam for the first time. But in mid-August, the school where Peldunas was meant to take the three-hour exam closed and canceled the test.

Hundreds of other testing sites across the U. None of this has discouraged Peldunas, however. I asked Peldunas why she is so determined to take a test.

The herculean effort students and their families are making to take a test right now—driving to a testing center a state or two away, or even getting on a plane—illustrates the allure the exams have in our winner-take-all admissions culture. Even before the coronavirus, more than 1, schools made the SAT and the ACT optional for admission , a list that grew by the year.

At the same time, the combined number of students taking the tests also continued to climb. In the high-school class of , for instance, nearly 1. In the class of , 1. Are kids in my school, in my town, still trying to take a test? The more selective the institution, the murkier its process can be. To students and their parents who find holistic admissions confusing and opaque, a test score is the one thing that is quantifiable. In , Chicago became the most prestigious and highest-ranked university ever to go test-optional at least until this year.

Read: Elite-college admissions are broken. How colleges adjust their testing requirements in the middle of a pandemic sends a powerful message about what matters, and applicants respond accordingly. The conventional wisdom among teenagers and their parents—especially those in affluent communities, given that standardized-test scores correlate with family income —is that the SAT and the ACT are the indicators by which students from widely varying high schools are judged.

But many in the admissions profession question whether test scores should be used at all in the selection process. But other studies show that both metrics taken together are the best predictor of success—better than either measure alone. Others say that test-blind policies take choice away from students who may want to use their high scores to help their application.

A national study found that some 60 percent of college applicants have test scores consistent with their academic performance in high school. The remaining students in that study, however, had a significant gap between the two metrics—either high test scores combined with low grades, or low test scores along with high grades.

What exactly does your SAT score mean, anyway? To answer this question, we need to go back to the beginning and look at the origin of the test as well as its evolution. For decades, the SAT formerly the Scholarly Aptitude Test has been the test of choice for colleges who wish to assess the readiness of their applicants for academic work at the postsecondary level.

Of course, this is not the same test college-bound students take today. The SAT has undergone many revisions and even complete overhauls. In , for example, it was completely redesigned.

In fact, over the past decade, a number of colleges and universities have either dropped the SAT entirely or made it an optional step towards admissions.

Instead of going into panic mode, we recommend you pause and put things in perspective. You can start by learning as much as you can about exactly what your score means. Here are some facts to get you started:.

Feel better? Additionally, many colleges have no preference as to which test a student submits, so a student with a bad SAT score could take the ACT and submit that score instead. It may not be the solution you hoped for, but if you find yourself dealing with a low SAT score, it might be time to re-examine your options. While it may still possible to get into your school of choice, a backup plan is also a reasonable safeguard and is something that all students need regardless of SAT scores.

How do you go about that? Some of these changes have altered the ways in which colleges and universities view standardized tests or whether they view them at all! While the vast majority of schools required the SAT in the past, many schools are now re-evaluating their policies and establishing themselves as either test-blind or test-optional institutions. Test-blind schools have taken the strongest stance against standardized testing as part of the college admissions process.

These colleges and universities instruct applicants not to send in standardized test results such as those from the SAT or ACT. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products.

List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Introduction A Solid Academic Record. What's a Good Academic Record? High Grades vs. Required Courses. Standardized Test Scores. Advanced Placement vs. International Baccalaureate. Extracurricular Activities. What Counts as an Extracurricular Activity? Summer Plans. Allen Grove. College Admissions Expert.

Allen Grove is an Alfred University English professor and a college admissions expert with over 20 years of experience helping students transition to college. Facebook Facebook Twitter Twitter. Featured Video. Cite this Article Format.