The culture around college admissions has become more competitive than ever before in the 21st century, and that competitiveness is reflected in the atmosphere around standardized testing. In the past, an SAT score above 1300 was viewed as fairly exceptional, with schools valuing such scores very highly and kids submitting scores in the 1200s and 1100s very comfortably, with no worry of their score affecting their chances of getting admitted.
However, with the recent rise of score inflation, SAT scores have been crossing the 1400s and 1500s more frequently than ever, and for many top schools the average score is over 1450 for admitted applicants. This puts a lot of additional stress and pressure on high-achieving students to try and get their score as high as possible, but it also causes some students to question whether or not they should even submit their score.
With the trend of score inflation across the nation, schools that are seen as competitive or highly selective typically have average score benchmarks that make submitting a 1400 feel like it almost disqualifies you from consideration. This discourages students from submitting scores that are very good, which is not a good thing at all and devalues standardized tests. It also doesn’t typically benefit students in the application process.
A 1400 is an excellent score that any student should be proud of and feel safe submitting to pretty much any school, and the current culture around SAT scores at the most competitive schools makes them feel as though they are not able to. This exacerbates the problem, as students going test optional actually allows these schools to increase their average SAT score of admitted students, as test optional students scores are not included in the publicly available averages for schools.
Even schools that are not as competitive as the very top schools in the country are seeing massive increases in average test scores. Schools such as Rutgers are now seeing SAT averages in the high 1300s to low 1400s, which are extremely high marks for a state school with a very large student body.
All of this inflation in SAT scores and people choosing to go test optional more than ever is decreasing the value of the SAT in general, which I think is unfortunate, as many people are getting scores that are very impressive that they should be proud of, and feel as though they are unable to submit those scores due to the averages they see online. People are seeing inflated averages as a result of people going test optional and are choosing to go test optional themselves.
The fact that people don’t feel comfortable submitting scores above 1400 is genuinely crazy, and I think people should be going test optional less often. If you are proud of your SAT score, submit it, as going test optional almost never benefits you.
