Recently, there have been several colleges that have made the Scholastic Aptitude Test, (SAT) and the American College Testing program, (ACT) optional for college admission requirements.

One of these schools is Wake Forest University, just a short drive from here.

According to Wake Forest’s Web site they justify this change by saying they believe students should be seen as individuals with personality, rather than just numbers on their applications.

I couldn’t agree more.

These tests are outdated and should not carry the influence in college admissions they once had.

These tests were once a fair and unbalanced way to ascertain the knowledge that students learned from high school.

From my own experience in high school I know this is not true anymore.

Students no longer study the concepts and information that will come up on the tests.

Instead, students are learning how to take the test, they prepare for the style of questions rather than the content they are being tested on.

This is a good change because not all students are good test takers.

I am not good at taking tests, and there have been several times I felt like being a poor test-taker has hindered me.

By omitting these test scores, college admissions can look at more than just test scores at what makes up a student, such as internships, grade point average, any college classes they have already taken, and their amount of high school involvement.

The tests have moved from being an unbiased medium to an industry.

The average student will pay to take the test, pay for the study guide –which prepares them for the questions and not necessarily the content –and students even pay for study sessions for the tests.

Then most students have to take the tests multiple times to get their scores as high as they can be.

I took the SAT twice while I was in high school, and still wasn’t satisfied with my score.

I believe there are many better ways to ascertain a student’s knowledge than just a test.

Advanced Placement scores challenge a student’s knowledge on something they learned which can be applied towards college.

College boards, which are by the same company as the SAT, are another excellent way to ascertain knowledge.

One way Wake Forest changed their applications to work with the absence of the SAT and ACT scores is to have short answer questions and essays to help give a bigger picture to what students are like.

Generally students that are not good test takers will excel in things such as essays and short answer questions.

They will be able to omit something that might hinder their acceptance and help themselves by adding essays that describe themselves better than test scores ever would.

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