The ACT Expert

Do I Still Have To Take The ACT Or SAT If I’m Only Applying To Test-Optional Colleges? (Will also be sharing this to my ACT FB page). The easy quick answer is yes; it is a very good idea to take one of the tests anyway. Once you get your results back, you can determine whether or not you should send those results to your prospective schools. However, if you don’t take the tests at all, you won’t have this option and might miss out on some of these essential opportunities: 

Admissions to your top choice schools: According to CollegeVine.com, students with similar profiles who applied to test-optional colleges were accepted at twice the rate if they submitted their scores compared to those students who did not submit their scores. 

Money: What many test-optional schools fail to tell you (unless you read the fine print) is that if you don’t submit your scores you can still technically get into the school, but often you cannot qualify for merit-based scholarships (as explored in this 2018 NACAC report.) 

Flexibility: If you end up changing your mind or discovering an additional school that you’d like to apply to that is not test-optional or test-blind, you’ll want to have those scores at the ready.