Cornell Suspends SAT/ACT Requirements for Next Year - First in the Ivy League
Applicants for Cornell class of 2025 will no longer be required to include SAT or ACT scores as part of their application. This is big news as Cornell is the first Ivy League college to announce material changes to their testing requirements for the Class of 2025. Other colleges like Harvard have also announced changes, but as we pointed out, Harvard’s changes were not significant. However, Cornell is drawing some important distinctions for students who have already taken the exams, or who still may be able to do so. Cornell emphasizes that it is not adopting a “test-optional admission” policy permanently. For students who have taken the SAT or ACT, Cornell will definitely consider their test score:
“As is true in all ‘test-optional’ admissions practices, we anticipate that many students who will have had reasonable and uninterrupted opportunities to take the ACT and/or SAT during 2020 administrations will continue to submit results, and those results will continue to demonstrate preparation for college-level work.”
Certainly, Ivy Link advises our students, who have taken either the SAT or ACT and achieved a good score, that they should submit the score. But for students who haven’t taken either test, Cornell concedes that SAT or ACT scores could still serve as “a meaningful differentiator in particular for students who:
live near or attend a school that will be open, and where testing will be offered, or who live near a testing center that will be offering more testing seats or dates than they did in 2019; and
have not experienced lost income for one or more of their household providers or other significant new hardships and losses during 2020.”
In other words, if a student is technically able to take either exam, the choice to not take it (presumably for COVID-19 concerns) could even impact their admissions chances negatively. Therefore, since we expect students will be able to take the SAT and ACT this fall (either in person or through at-home testing that has been proposed if in-person testing continues to be unsafe), students who do not already have strong scores should continue to prepare through the summer, so that they can take the ACT or SAT in the fall. Here’s to hoping that both the ACT and SAT will be offering at-home testing options this fall! As we mentioned in a previous post, the ACT is already planning to offer online testing starting in September.
For students who will not be able to take either the ACT or SAT in time for applications this fall, “Cornell readers will consider with increased scrutiny their other application documents, looking for different evidence of excellent academic preparation”.
This essentially comes down to stellar grades and an impressive extracurricular record. But what if the student was planning on attending a crucial summer program this year that’s been canceled? What if a student’s high school has switched to Pass/Fail grading for the Spring 2020 semester?
One thing is for sure: personal essays and other accomplishments will be carrying more weight than ever before. We work with our students to find compelling ways to enhance their extracurricular profile and personal essays in the event they’re limited in ways they could showcase their grades and test scores. Cornell’s full announcement can be found here.
