Due to COVID-19, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions waived the SAT or ACT test score admission requirement for the  fall 2021 applications. This decision came as a result of the cancellation of many standardized tests in the spring and summer of 2020, which made it difficult for many applicants to take either test before the application deadline.

Jon Westover, the associate vice provost and director of admissions in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, said a student’s high school transcript has always been one of the most influential aspects of their application, especially now, with the absence of standardized testing scores.

“We really dug in a little bit deeper on the overall curriculum that students were taking and looking at the types of classes they were taking throughout their four years — the progression in those classes, the rigor of those classes and how well they’ve done in those,” Westover said.

Westover said the admissions office had to be more lenient during the COVID-19 pandemic because of educational disadvantages it has caused for applicants.

“We had to recognize that students went to online learning last March, so how they performed in the second half of last year is not how they necessarily would have performed in a regular face-to-face,” Westover said. “So really putting a bit more emphasis on the first two-and-a-half years.”

Westover said students were provided with a space on the application to explain how their circumstances may have been affected by the pandemic and how their application may look because of it.

“The good thing is that the Common Application and the Coalition Application, the two applications that we accept, gave students opportunities to let us know how they were impacted by COVID-19,” Westover said. “They can tell us about how it’s altered their education experience, but also anything else that may have happened outside of the classroom, whether it be loss of income of a parent, their own personal loss of income, relatives getting sick and all those different kinds of things. We’re really mindful of that as we’re looking at students this year.”

Westover was surprised by the amount of students who chose to submit an SAT or ACT score, given the option to opt out. He said about 48% of applicants wanted to be reviewed with scores, and only 52% chose to be considered without one.

Landon Smith, a high school senior accepted into the Poole College of Management, decided to submit both an ACT and SAT score with his application.

“We had a schoolwide ACT exam in February, and I actually took the SAT on the March date,” Smith said. “It was right before COVID-19 started getting bad. A lot of schools canceled their tests, but we didn’t have a breakout yet, so we were able to have it.”

Westover explains that a significant number of students were able to take a test before the COVID-19 lockdowns.

“As a junior in February, you got to take the ACT,” Westover said. “So there’s a lot of students who had the opportunity to do that. I think there were students who had already taken it, either the SAT or ACT, even before they took the school-administered exam. So by the time March rolled around, it wasn’t that big a deal that they weren’t able to take it over the summer. For out-of-state students, depending on where they are, there were some exams that got administered late in the summer and again this fall.” 

Some applicants decided to submit their scores because they thought it would provide them with a competitive edge. One such student was Alexandra Davies, a high school senior admitted into the College of Education.

“I think it helped my chances, but only because it was optional for everybody,” Davies said. “I thought maybe because it was optional, people who chose not to submit their scores, I would have an advantage over them, even though most schools said it wouldn’t affect your application.”  

Smith had a similar opinion to Davies and thought that submitting his score would be more beneficial than not.

“I had a pretty good score, so I think that since they complimented my application rather than hindering them,” Smith said. “I think that definitely gave me an advantage rather than not sending anything because of having that quantitative value that compares you to others.”

Westover is adamant that choosing to submit a score did not affect any applicant’s chance of admission. Students’ high school transcripts and essay question responses were the most influential factors in their admission decision.

“The transcript, and everything that the transcript tells us, has always been really the most important part of the review process,” Westover said. “How students have done in challenging courses is the most predictive of how well they’re going to do when they get there. We use a very holistic review process, so in addition to the transcript, we are reviewing the essays. There’s a couple of short answer questions, and we ask the student why they’re interested in a particular major and more importantly, why are they interested in studying that here at NC State.”

The absence of standardized testing scores on applications this year has fueled the long debated conversation about the usefulness of standardized testing. Davies feels fortunate to have been provided with the resources needed to succeed but believes, overall, that standardized testing may not be a good way to measure students.

“I think, personally, I’m an average test-taker, but I was fortunate to take an ACT prep course prior to taking the ACT,” Davies said. “I think that’s probably the only reason I did as decent as I did. I do not think that they are a good way of measuring students’ intelligence because I did really bad on my PreACT, but after I took the prep course, I did so much better. I know that most kids are not able to take a prep course.”

The decision whether or not standardized test scores will be waived for admissions for fall 2022 is up to the UNC Board of Governors. Westover hopes the board will come to a decision soon, so next year’s applicants can make important decisions and plans regarding testing.

“We didn’t receive the waiver until sometime in July, which certainly caused a lot of angst for students who were getting ready to go through the process,” Westover said. “I hope that the board will certainly take the issue up sooner rather than later.”

More information about admissions and application requirements can be found at the admissions office’s website.