SAT subject tests and optional essay will be scrapped under COVID-19

In another major change to the standardized testing industry, the College Board announced Tuesday that it intended to abolish the SAT subject tests and optional essay. The pandemic has accelerated the push to “reduce and simplify the requirements for students”.

The nation’s leading standardized test organization also announced that it is developing a “more flexible SAT” that will be streamlined and delivered digitally.

“The pandemic has shown the importance of being innovative and adaptable to what lies ahead,” the college board said in a statement. “We are determined to make the SAT a more flexible tool and we are making significant investments in it.”

The changes will have little impact on students applying to the University of California. This has resulted in the narrowing of standardized tests – particularly SAT and ACT – that critics have dismissed as biased based on their race, income, and parenting educational level. UC has already eliminated the requirements for subject testing and is aiming to get out of the general SAT and ACT. In addition, a court order banned their use for current high school graduates. The UC Board of Regents will meet this week to discuss a new recommendation to permanently remove standardized testing as a prerequisite for approval.

More than 1,000 colleges and universities across Germany have lowered the test requirements. The pandemic has accelerated this move away from testing as three-quarters of U.S. colleges made it optional for admission this year due to limited testing options.

“The College Board is only recognizing the economically inevitable: the number of colleges and universities that require either the SAT essay or subject exams declined rapidly before the pandemic and was essentially zero in the current admission cycle,” said Bob Schaeffer, Director of Public Education at FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing.

“As a result, the number of registrations for both exams decreased. After significant revenue losses due to multiple test cancellation rounds over the past 10 months, it made no financial sense to keep trying to market his less and less popular products, ”he said.

The College Board said the SAT subject tests could be replaced with its AP tests, which students typically take after completing a college-level course in subjects ranging from chemistry to history during high school. The testing organization said the “expanded reach of AP and its widespread availability to low-income and color students” meant the subject tests were no longer necessary.

“AP provides abundant and varied opportunities for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills through college-level courses,” said the college board of directors. “Courses like AP Computer Science Principles … provide the kind of hands-on learning and hands-on, real-world work that college students want to see.”

The college board also said there were other ways students could demonstrate their essay writing skills, but that the overall SAT would continue to measure writing and editing skills.

Students can take the SAT with an essay by the SAT administration in June 2021. The College Board also said it would give students in the 2022 class the opportunity to take the SAT this year by giving them seating that would otherwise go to those taking subject tests and potentially expanding capacity and test administrations in the fall .

“There is still a clear demand from students to use the SAT to demonstrate their strengths to colleges,” said the college board.