Greater Latrobe senior Autumn Blozowich took the SAT three times before and during her junior year, yet when she applied to Pitt, Kent State and Penn State, she didn’t submit her scores once.
“I wasn’t really happy with my scores,” she said of the standardized entrance exam. “If you don’t submit them, (colleges) then defer their decision to the personal essay that you wrote, and I was a lot prouder of that than I was the scores.”
The strategy worked, earning her acceptance to all three schools.
Dozens of Western Pennsylvania colleges and universities — including Duquesne, Point Park, Saint Vincent and PennWest — have maintained test-optional policies for the past six years, allowing students to decide whether their SAT scores can be considered in the admission process.
But the tide is beginning to turn.
Higher education policy researcher Andrew Gillen believes a reversal of this trend is on the horizon as schools recognize that scores, combined with grades, are the strongest predictor of student success.
Carnegie Mellon, for example, will require scores for competitive programs such as computer science starting this fall, signaling a shift back to standardized metrics.
First administered experimentally in 1926, the SAT was modeled after World War I Army IQ tests, according to the Education Writers Association. Today, the College Board exam costs $68, though fee waivers are available for students who are unhoused, in foster care or qualify for federal nutrition programs.
For decades, the test was a staple of the admissions process alongside GPAs and essays. However, the pandemic forced a sudden pivot.
“When covid hit, there was a real concern about ‘Can you even give these tests the way they’ve been given historically?’ which is gathering a whole bunch of people in a room,” said Gillen, a research fellow at the Cato Institute. “You can’t do that if you’re trying to social distance.”
While critics had questioned the test’s ability to equally assess students from underrepresented communities since at least 2010, those debates never led to widespread change until 2020.
That year, the College Board was forced to pause testing, and more than 1 million students had to cancel their test registrations. Colleges nationwide relinquished SAT requirements to accommodate them.
Researchers eventually discovered that the shift to test-optional policies did not have a significant impact on student populations.
“Largely, what they found was that it didn’t make much of a difference for most students,” Gillen said. “You did see a couple campuses that would increase underrepresented minority enrollment. You saw other campuses that would rely more on high school (grades), but it didn’t lead to this huge shift in who was getting admitted.”
Gillen believes that returning to the test will likely have a similar, limited effect.
“That leads me to believe that if you go back to requiring this test, you’re basically going to get the inverse of that, which is maybe some changes around the margin. But it’s not going to be this huge shift.”
SAT still holds value, experts say
Gillen believes the SAT has proved to be a reliable predictor of performance — occasionally helping colleges identify successful students whose grades did not reflect their intelligence.
However, the opposite scenario also occurs, says Michele Wisnesck, vice president of marketing and enrollment management at Seton Hill University in Greensburg.
That possibility is why the university has maintained its test-optional policy.
“There’s a lot of anxiety surrounding these tests,” Wisnesck said. “For those who don’t feel that (their SAT score) offers an accurate representation of their academic abilities, I think that the test-optional route is a great one for them to consider so that they can still, with confidence, submit their application to universities.”
Wisnesck also suspects that SAT scores can help colleges sift through an influx of applications — particularly for those larger than Seton Hill, which educates nearly 1,900 students.
While Wisnesck acknowledges that “standardized tests provide very useful information,” Seton Hill prefers a holistic approach that weighs grades, course rigor, leadership and community engagement.
“I would never say (an SAT score) was the most important thing,” Wisnesck said. “It was one of many things that we looked at.”
“That approach reflects our mission as a Catholic university to get to know the students as individuals and evaluate their potential — not just as learners, but as people who want to make a meaningful contribution to society,” she said.
The policy is proving popular; about 70% of Seton Hill’s 2026-27 applicants have opted not to submit scores. In the six years since dropping the requirement, the university has seen steady increases in applications, retention and graduation rates.
“We’re continuing to attract those motivated students who thrive here,” Wisnesck said. “I think covid helped us, and a lot of our neighboring institutions, embrace the test-optional policy.”
Penn State also has maintained a test-optional policy heading into 2026-27. Matt Melvin, the university’s vice president for enrollment management, said “the body of a student’s work is more predictive of their success in college than what the score of a single exam can show.”
“We don’t want tests to become a barrier to student populations that don’t have the ability to participate in test preparation courses or take the exam multiple times,” Melvin said in a statement. “We want to level the application process as much as possible.”
Laura Hamilton, a senior associate at the nonprofit Center for Assessment, agrees that scores should not be the sole determinant.
“Any high-stakes decision about an individual — whether that’s college admission or employment, anything like that — should be made using multiple sources of information rather than a single cut score on a test,” she said.
Colleges owe applicants ‘as much information as possible’
Offering students the choice to submit scores comes with its own complications, said Greater Latrobe senior Erin Ulewicz.
She took the test three times despite applying to test-optional schools such as Penn State and West Virginia. Committed to Saint Francis for physician assistant studies, she believes her score bolstered her application but wasn’t the end-all compared to her GPA.
“You really never know what colleges are looking for specifically in your application,” she said. “I think knowing how colleges view the SAT would help — having a test-mandatory policy and then also the understanding between you and the school you’re submitting to that the score isn’t defining everything.”
This lack of clarity is why Dartmouth resumed SAT requirements two years ago. An internal study concluded that standardized scores help the admissions office identify less-advantaged applicants who become high-achieving students.
Hamilton believes this research highlights a critical issue: Students at test-optional schools may unintentionally withhold scores that would boost their chances of admission.
“It’s really important to give applicants as much information as possible about how their applications will be evaluated,” she said. “I do think as an applicant, a lot of this is very mysterious, and it can be stressful if you’re trying to figure out what’s the right strategy to maximize your chances.”
High schoolers weigh in on SAT policies
Many Western Pennsylvania high schoolers support test-optional policies, believing they allow for a more authentic self-portrayal.
Greater Latrobe senior Addison Tinsely, who aims to study aerospace engineering, says the flexibility “levels the playing field financially and academically, because if you aren’t able to afford to take the test, it puts you at a position where you are apparently equal.”
The policies also mitigate the intense pressure of standardized testing.
“I think it makes it less nerve-wracking,” says Penn-Trafford junior Samantha Seech, who recently took the SAT for the first time. “And you don’t feel like you have to spend all night studying as much as you can just so you can get the score that a school would require.”
However, many students still see value in the exam.
Leechburg Area High School senior Avery Adkins purchased an SAT preparation book and enrolled in an online study program — created four years ago by district math teacher Craig Southern — to ensure she was ready for test day.
“I honestly thought (an SAT score) would be good to have on hand with me,” Adkins said.
The program, available free of charge to the district’s students, includes about 460 questions from eight previous versions of the SAT.
Students can complete the practice questions at their own pace. Southern has recorded videos, about one to four minutes long, explaining the solution to each question.
“What I have found over the past 20-plus years of teaching,” Southern said, “is I’ve always had students who come to me and they’re like, ‘Mr. Southern, I’m using this prep book, but I missed these six or seven (problems) and I don’t know why. I don’t understand them…’
“I wanted to make something that was self-sufficient, that they could do completely independently.”
With the help of Southern’s online course, Adkins performed well on the SAT. Her strong score propelled her to receiving financial aid from Grove City College — which offers several scholarships to students based on their SAT score and GPA.
But Greater Latrobe senior Sarah Levan believes there has been a generational shift in how the SAT is viewed.
“There’s a lot of people who are bad test takers, people who are stronger in one subject than another,” said Levan, who aims to study civil engineering at Pitt or Penn State. “I think nowadays, kids know that and colleges know that, too, so they look (at applicants) more holistically.
“I think back in the day, our parents were like, ‘Your SAT score is a measure of how smart you are,’ whereas I feel like now kids know it’s just not that serious.”
