PrepWell Podcast with Phil Black
Oct 11, 2026 · 12 min · 7 segments
In this week's podcast, I discuss whether or not to submit an SAT/ACT score. This decision is not as straightforward as one might think. It goes deeper than "as long as it's in the middle 50% or…
Phil BlackHost
Today, I wanna give some guidance on whether or not to submit an SAT or an ACT score to a test-optional school.
As most of you know by now, there are many colleges that have kept their test-optional policies in place despite growing evidence that this experiment has failed at many selective schools.
What do I mean by that? Well, there was a three to four-year period of time, starting with COVID, where submitting an SAT score was no longer required at many colleges, and admissions officers claimed that they would not hold it against you if you chose not to submit an SAT score.
If you had good grades, took a few AP classes, did a couple of extracurriculars, that was all they needed, they claimed.
Thousands of students who chose not to submit their SAT scores were admitted to colleges that were out of their academic league, and many of them ended up failing classes, failing out of school, or scrambling to get remedial help in math and English, or all of the above.
Colleges had to stand up entirely new departments in subjects that this new wave of students could handle.
It turned out that scores on standardized tests actually did correlate well with how students performed academically in college.
Today, many colleges, especially the most selective colleges, have reinstated a test-required policy to admissions.
Those colleges who didn't want to revert back to test required have stuck with test optional, with the big caveat that if you don't submit an SAT score, it can be held against you in the admissions process.
In other words, if you're competing against another student who matched up closely with your profile and you submitted a strong SAT score and the other student chose not to submit an SAT score, you would get the nod.
You would get rewarded for proving that you can perform well on a standardized test.
The reason that more colleges don't go back to a test-required policy is that it would dramatically reduce the number of applications that they receive, which would, number one, impact the revenue they generate from those applications, 'cause you have to pay for those application submissions, and two, the fewer applications they receive, the less selective their college will appear because the, the admit rate will go up.
In other words, the denominator, which represents the number of applications, would go way down.
The numerator, representing the number of students that they admit, would stay the same, and thus the acceptance rate would go up.
And of course, that hurts them in the rankings because they los- they look less selective and less elite with a higher admit rate.
All of this brings us to today's discussion about whether or not to submit an SAT score to a test-optional school.
Today, I wanna give some guidance on whether or not to submit an SAT or an ACT score to a test-optional school.
As most of you know by now, there are many colleges that have kept their test-optional policies in place despite growing evidence that this experiment has failed at many selective schools.
What do I mean by that? Well, there was a three to four-year period of time, starting with COVID, where submitting an SAT score was no longer required at many colleges, and admissions officers claimed that they would not hold it against you if you chose not to submit an SAT score.
If you had good grades, took a few AP classes, did a couple of extracurriculars, that was all they needed, they claimed.
Thousands of students who chose not to submit their SAT scores were admitted to colleges that were out of their academic league, and many of them ended up failing classes, failing out of school, or scrambling to get remedial help in math and English, or all of the above.
Colleges had to stand up entirely new departments in subjects that this new wave of students could handle.
It turned out that scores on standardized tests actually did correlate well with how students performed academically in college.
Today, many colleges, especially the most selective colleges, have reinstated a test-required policy to admissions.
Those colleges who didn't want to revert back to test required have stuck with test optional, with the big caveat that if you don't submit an SAT score, it can be held against you in the admissions process.
In other words, if you're competing against another student who matched up closely with your profile and you submitted a strong SAT score and the other student chose not to submit an SAT score, you would get the nod.
You would get rewarded for proving that you can perform well on a standardized test.
The reason that more colleges don't go back to a test-required policy is that it would dramatically reduce the number of applications that they receive, which would, number one, impact the revenue they generate from those applications, 'cause you have to pay for those application submissions, and two, the fewer applications they receive, the less selective their college will appear because the, the admit rate will go up.
In other words, the denominator, which represents the number of applications, would go way down.
The numerator, representing the number of students that they admit, would stay the same, and thus the acceptance rate would go up.
And of course, that hurts them in the rankings because they los- they look less selective and less elite with a higher admit rate.
All of this brings us to today's discussion about whether or not to submit an SAT score to a test-optional school.
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