Video summary
Harvard, Yale, Brown, ve Dartmouth gibi prestijli üniversitelerin 2024 başvuru dönemi için SAT gerekliliklerini yeniden getirmesi, test opsiyonelliğinin sona erdiğine dair güçlü bir işaret oluşturuyor. Bu dönüşün arkasında dört temel neden bulunurken, en basiti bu politikaların çoğunun pandemiye geçici bir tepki olarak benimsenmesidir; üniversitelerin asla sonsuz süre boyunca test opsiyonel kalacağını planlamadıkları ve öğrencilerin sınavlara tekrar dönüştükçe eski düzenin geri geldiği görülüyor. Ancak sadece zamanın geçtiğinden öte, bazı kurumların sözlerini tutmadığı da ortada: Kaliforniya Teknoloji Enstitüsü (Caltech) gibi beş yıllık bir moratoryum ilan etmiş büyük isimler bile bu yıl SAT'yi zorunlu kıldığını duyurdu. Bu ani kararlar ve Dartmouth'un test opsiyonelliğini terk etmesi, politikaların doğal süresi dolmasından daha fazlasının devreye girdiğini gösteriyor; üniversiteler artık sadece pandemi sonrası normalleşme sürecini değil, sınavsız politikalara yönelik eleştirileri de göz önünde bulundurarak geri dönüş yapıyor.
Öğrenciler açısından bu değişimin en önemli sonucu, SAT hazırlığının tekrar önem kazandığı ve başvuru stratejilerinin buna göre şekillendirmesi gerektiğidir. Veriler, test opsiyonel dönemlerinde düşük puan alan öğrencilerin genellikle skorlarını göndermemeyi tercih ettiklerini gösteriyor; ancak sınav zorunlu hale geldiğinde bu grupların ortalamalarının yükseldiği görülüyor çünkü artık "güçlü" olmayan skorları bile sunmak mecburiyeti doğuyor. Örneğin, Tennessee Üniversitesi'nde 25. yüzdil seviyesindeki puanlar opsiyonel dönemde gönderilmeyenlerken, zorunlu hale gelince ortalamaların yükseldiği tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca Florida gibi test opsiyonelliğine izin verilmeyen eyaletlerdeki üniversitelerin pandemi sırasında yaşanan puan düşüşleri de, sınavın kaldırılmasının aslında stres azaltmak yerine belirsizliği artırdığını ve öğrencilerin kendi skorlarını göndermekten çekindiğini kanıtlayan bir örnektir.
SAT'nin geri dönüşünün en kritik nedeni ise akademik başarıyı tahmin etme konusunda GPA'dan daha iyi bir göstere olduğu yönündeki bulgulardır. Texas Üniversitesi Austin kampüsü yaptığı iç veri analiziyle, sınav skoru sunan öğrencilerin ortalama GPAs'ın, sunmayanlara göre %86 puan daha yüksek olduğunu ortaya koymuştur; bu fark sınıf ortalamasındaki normal dalgalanmalardan çok daha büyüktür ve grade inflasyonu (not şişirme) nedeniyle GPA'nın güvenilirliğini yitirdiği bir dönemde sınavların önemi yeniden vurgulanmaktadır. Bunun yanı sıra, test opsiyonelliğinin başvuru sayılarını artırması da mali bütçesi kısıtlı büyük devlet üniversiteleri için sorun teşkil etmiştir; ani artan başvuru hacmi, her öğrenciyi detaylı incelemeyi zorlaştırırken, bazı okullar artık standartize edilmiş testlerin yanı sıra IB veya AP sınavlarını kabul eden daha esnek ("test flexible") politikalar benimsiyor.
Sonuç olarak, lise üçüncü sınıfı ve ikinci sınıfları için SAT hazırlığına şimdi başlamak en mantıklı stratejidir çünkü başvuru manzarası çok hızlı değişebilir; bazı üniversiteler hala test opsiyonel kalırken, diğerleri ya tamamen zorunlu hale getiriyor ya da alternatif sınavları kabul eden hibrit modelleri tercih ediyor. Özellikle üst düzey prestijli okullara veya büyük burs ihtiyacı olan öğrenciler için iyi bir SAT skoru hâlâ hayati önem taşımaktadır ve eğer hedeflenen üniversitelerden biri test opsiyonel olsa bile, elinizde güçlü bir skor bulunması her zaman daha avantajlıdır. Gelecek yıllarda sınavsız politikalara dayalı denemelerin kısa sürede sona ereceği öngörül
Read the full video transcript
Harvard Yale Brown and even Dartmouth
have reinstated their sat requirements
for people applying in 2024 why is this
happening and how does it impact your
applications for fall 2025 my name is
meum I'm your college counselor and
today we're talking about the return of
the sat there are four main reasons why
we're starting to see universities go
back to requiring standardized testing
and the first one is actually pretty
simple most of these test optional
policies were temporary in nature
University never really planned to go
test optional forever and ever like most
of them just did this in response to the
pandemic and once people were able to go
back to taking tests they went back now
before I get into these other reasons I
want to talk about what this means for
you as a student I think it's pretty
clear you should definitely start
preparing for the SAT and you should
take it at least once and it's entirely
possible that more universities are
going to switch back to requiring the
SAT this year so it would be better for
you to have it and not need it than need
it and not have it because the last
thing you want is to have to reconfigure
your college list because a few
universities changed their minds about
their test policy and if you are going
to prepare for the SAT well then you
need more material than what we've got
already Blue Book does now include up to
six practice tests which is great but
even that is not really enough for you
to get a lot of practice on the digital
sat and that's why I recommend you check
out the SAT crashcourse tocom they're
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practice test for less than the cost of
a McDonald's combo meal like you're not
going to get a better deal and let's get
back to talking about why this sa is
coming back there were still some big
names though that seemed like they were
going to stick with the test optional
regime and that's including major
universities like Caltech that put a
5-year moratorium on all standardized
testing what's crazy is four years into
that Caltech just recently announced
that they're going to bring back the SAT
requirement even though this year was
supposed to be another test optional
year in fact it's such an Abrupt
decision that if you Google Caltech test
policy you get very conflicting results
like the first result here is from their
original statement where they declared
this moratorium and then just a little
further below there's a new post that
tells you that you're going to have to
present the SAT this year some
universities are going back on their
promises to stay test optional for a
while and still others that were
extremely proud to be test optional like
Dartmouth are coming back to requiring
the SAT so there's more going on here
than just you know policies expiring
with testing being required at more
universities you might think that you
need to present a higher score but
actually data from previous years might
be lying to you test optional policies
kind of put those good but not great
students into a tricky position I did a
little bit of a comparison with
different colleges and looked at the
data and it turns out that there are a
lot of universities that saw their
numbers creep up during the test
optional phase a lot of people didn't
want to send their scores unless they
were super confident that they were
really good scores let's say you're a
student looking at the University of
Tennessee and you've got a score of 1150
which puts you near the 25th percentile
in a test optional world you're probably
not going to send that score but if it
is required you probably do I looked at
the low 25% because I feel like that's
where we're going to see more of this
affected like obviously the the good
scores are still going to arrive but
it's those scores that are on the edge
that maybe won't in the case of
Tennessee that low 25% shot up from 1140
to 1180 because again those people that
were down at the bottom didn't want to
send their scores when it was test
optional this the same thing happened at
the University of Georgia they only had
one test optional year but you can see
that their numbers went up and then as
soon as they returned to requiring tests
it went right back down to normal and
for a good like measuring stick look at
public universities in Florida which
were not allowed to go test optional
because Florida is always doing things
the Florida way look at how much their
scores dropped during the pandemic and
that's because during that year there
was only like one or two chances for
students to take the SAT this policy was
designed to help people right to remove
some of the stress and anxiety around
testing and instead has created more
anxiety for those students who are on
the bubble so by requiring SAT scores
people will just have to send what they
have and at the same time that's going
to bring down the numbers a little bit
and that might make people feel a little
more comfortable about sending their
test scores the third big reason here is
the number of applications test optional
did create an increase in the number of
applications per student student if we
look at pre-pandemic levels the average
person had six applications after the
pandemic it went up to seven cat can we
not okay now net increase in
applications is kind of a problem if
you're a big public school that has
somewhat tight funding and you don't
have a lot of resources to just suddenly
expand your admissions Department like
that increase in application volume
makes it hard to review every single
student perhaps though the biggest
reason why the SAT is coming back in a
big way is because it's a really good
predictor of academic performance in
college the SAT has been criticized a
lot for being nothing more than an
indicator of your family's wealth
because people who have more money take
the test multiple times they get better
preparation and therefore have higher
scores and that is still true at the
same time it does also correlate really
well with academic performance UT Austin
did an interesting study of its own
internal data they went test optional
and conveniently about half the students
applied with test scores and about half
did not UT Austin found that the
students who applied with test scores
had an average GPA 86 points higher than
those who didn't bring test scores that
is a very big difference that is like
way more than a standard deviation again
I don't know anything about math but
that sounded like I did right so trust
that without the SAT people were looking
strictly at gpas but because of things
like grade inflation those are becoming
less reliable and if the SAT is a better
indicator of academic performance than
the GPA then the test optional
experiment is probably going to die
within the next few years but that's not
to say that every school is going to
suddenly switch back to requiring the
SAT I think a lot of universities are
happy with their test optional policies
especially universities that aren't the
most selective like if they're going to
admit you on good numbers anyway and
they don't really care if you get like
1,500 then test optional is perfectly
fine and there's still going to be the
entire freaking State of California that
goes test blind and refuses to look at
test scores because of the way they feel
they influence equality in the
admissions process at the same time I
think we're going to see other
universities take different approaches
Yale's policy is not actually strictly a
test required policy it's test
flexible test flexible basically means
that you have to present some form of
standardized testing but it doesn't
necessarily have to be an SAT or ACT
score if you have IB or AP exams you can
send those instead and then you don't
have to send the SAT you could also send
the SAT you could send the SAT act I AP
and IB and if you're in Florida you
could even send the CLT and if you want
a video about that mess leave a comment
below if enough of you people care to
learn more about the CLT test I'd be
happy to tell you all about it given
that it's not widely available
internationally and it's still not that
popular in the United States and that
it's kind of psycho I don't really plan
on making one unless you really care so
the bottom line is if you are a School
junior or your high school sophomore you
should start preparing for the SAT now
I've been to some of these universities
like Purdue and Georgetown and FIU and
they're gorgeous they're wonderful
institutions and like I think it would
be a shame if you missed out on some of
those opportunities just because you
didn't want to bring a test score now I
know I have said on this channel several
times that the SAT is not as important
as it used to be and I believe that
remains true there are still a lot of
universities that are just test optional
and there they're not going to require
you to present an SAT score this year
but if you want to Target those top best
of the best schools because you need a
lot of financial aid or just because you
really need prestige in order to
validate your existence or because your
parents are really Asian like then you
need a good SAT score and that's always
been true and with anything in college
admissions the scene can change really
quickly so you need to stay aware of the
latest trends and while a couple of
years ago I definitely feel like test
optional was really beneficial for a lot
of students I can see now that some of
the trend is reversing and so you're
going to want to bring a good test score
anyway so we're in a situation where it
behooves you to have a test score and if
you want to make your test score the
best it can be check out the satc
crashcourse ccom use the promo code
score a checkout to get a nice fat
discount and help me out a little bit
and also check out the resources that I
made for students I put together a bunch
of materials I have class recordings
available from my classes that I live
streamed here on YouTube like I've got
material out there to help you get a
better score on the digital sat so you
can check out that stuff as well and
thanks for watching the channel I
appreciate you I'll see you next time