Unyielding standards in trying times: Florida insists on SAT and ACT for college applicants
By: Natalia Ribeiro
Tags: Universities, Tsr Features, Florida, Entrance Exams, Education

Universities in Florida are still requiring college entrance exams for college applicants even though other states have called it off.

In high school, one thing most students spend their time studying for is the national tests required by all universities. Now, in the middle of the pandemic, almost every state university has revoked the required tests, except in Florida.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the class of 2021 graduating seniors have had a much different senior year experience then they expected. The last thing they need to be worrying about is having to take a test in order to get into a university.

These college entrance exams are required when applying to any university in the nation. Students start studying for the SAT or ACT in their junior year so they can take it in the spring. In between their junior and senior year, students will even take the exams another two or three times to try to achieve higher scores.

While testing centers might be open, they could close at any moment. Testing centers may close on short notice, and may even close on a scheduled make up day. This can lead to many students wasting time studying for an exam, only for it to not be administered.

When these test centers do offer the exams, not all of them are able to be inside the room.

If students apply for a testing date, only a small amount of them will be able to take it. The rest of the students left won’t be able to take the test, unless the testing center puts the extra students into a different room.

If the remaining students in a different room, the centers have to make sure there are enough rooms to hold the students while making sure the students able to socially distance. Each room also needs a test proctor to administer the test.

Many students also do not want to take the risk of catching coronavirus while sitting indoors with strangers for hours, just to take an exam. Some live with family members that are at-risk or they themselves are part of the at-risk group. Taking the chances of getting or transmitting coronavirus is not worth the risk.

The last SAT date for 2020 was December 5 and the ACT was December 12, but even those dates were not guaranteed.

These tests sometimes might not even be offered in a location close to a student’s residence. Students will have to travel miles away to an area where the test is being administered and hope that location is open.

Not every student has the opportunity to travel miles away to a testing location. This travel can get expensive quickly — Gas, hotel, and food are all costs that add up in the end.

In most cases, the result of not removing the test requirement may have already shown. Florida not revoking the requirement of the national test might lead to a decrease in applications. In a different scenario, it might lure Florida students to apply to out-of-state universities.

College students walk around campus at a university campus (Photo by Emily Karakis on Unsplash)

Since the majority of universities outside the state of Florida have revoked the testing requirement, students might feel more inclined to apply towards out-of-state universities.

But out-of-state universities are not an option for every student. Fees for classes for out of state students are higher than those who live in the universities state. Some students also do not want to go out-of-state for college and prefer to stay close to home.

There are also students from outside the state of Florida who were hoping to attend university in the state, but now won’t because of the testing requirement. Florida universities will lose students that would have applied to an in-state university if the university had dropped the testing requirement.

The University of Tulsa, for example, has made the national test an option. Students applying can write an essay, attach a resume and recommendation letter, and answer questions to make themselves stand out.

Universities in Florida can take ideas from the University of Tulsa and other universities across the nation to reimagine how they evaluate students applying to colleges in the state.

If Florida universities do not revoke the test requirement, the schools will face consequences such as lower enrollment numbers, less applications, and a less diverse student body in the future. If Florida doesn’t change course, it will be remembered as the state that did not have sympathy for students during a global pandemic.