Starting this year, DePaul Univesity will no longer be requiring the submission of SAT or ACT scores for admission. In doing so, they are now regarded as the the largest private non-profit college to offer test-optional applications.
According to DePaul’s website, “By allowing [students] to determine how to best showcase [their] academic potential, [we are] emphasizing that four years of perseverance, motivation and effort during high school bear a direct relationship to successful college-level work”.
Didn’t do as well as you’d hoped on your SAT or ACT? Don’t sweat it.
Test-optional universities allow students to emphasize their strengths through other means, such as additional interviews, transcripts, or short essays.
Many universities have begun realizing that every student possesses individual strengths and weaknesses. Reviewing students through a holistic, all-around type of consideration provides a more diverse student body – both intellectually, culturally, and socially.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that “of the incoming class of 2010, the latest figures available, 52 percent fall into one of four categories that make up what DePaul calls a “mission student’ — a first generation college student, low income, an underrepresented student of color or a student from the City of Chicago”. Many of these students are unable to get proper test prep. Test-optional policies are a great way to encourage students of all socioeconomic backgrounds to apply for university and obtain a degree.
Whether you aren’t the strongest tester, you don’t have the resources to prepare for your test of choice, or you simply feel that your test scores don’t accurately represent your academic potential, universities with test-optional applications do exist, and their numbers are growing; there are currently around 800 institutions that have added the option, including Indiana State University, Sarah Lawrence College, Smith College, and Arizona State University.