Covid-19 and standardized testing: First Scenario
Reports of rising cases of COVID-19 in the United States and the impact of the pandemic on the economy have monopolized the news. But what about our high school juniors fast approaching their College Application seasons? As it stands right now, the admission testing required by over 85% of American colleges and universities has been made unavailable to students since March. The SAT was cancelled in March for many New Jersey students whose high school testing locations were closed due to early cases of Coronavirus in the community. Two weeks later, once all U.S. schools had closed, the College Board, the private company responsible for the SAT, and ACT Inc. both suspended their next rounds of testing, the May SAT and the April ACT. This left hundreds of thousands of 11th graders across the country prepped for the spring testing, but with no tests to take. According to CDC recommendations and with New Jersey still three weeks away from the peak of the pandemic, it is a very real possibility that the June SAT and ACT will be cancelled as well.
So where does this leave our juniors with no Spring SAT’s and early admission deadlines as early as October 15, 2020? As I see it, we have three possible outcomes. The first hinges on the CDC and local governments giving the all clear by August for public high schools to reopen as testing centers. This would enable the August SAT to run as scheduled. In this scenario, the October test date would also run as scheduled giving college applicants those 2 test dates only to reach their career high scores before the Early Admission deadlines. Of course, in this scenario it is certainly possible that colleges will extend their deadlines for application as they are always the good guys in the process. For example after Hurricane Sandy, colleges extended application deadlines for all students in areas affected by the storm. Extended deadlines could give Early Admission applicants the chance to submit scores from the November and December SAT’s as well. The College Board will no doubt be looking for every opportunity to schedule make up dates to avoid issuing refunds for the canceled March and May tests, but the college application timeline itself will limit just how many they can schedule.
Marlee Napurano, BA Yale University, is Co-founder of WaveLength tutoring and test prep, a test preparation and college consulting company in its 19th year serving Monmouth and Ocean counties.
