SAT-optional: Will trend take off or sputter?

If you’re one of those students afraid standardized test scores don’t paint the full picture of your potential, your options are growing. More and more colleges don’t require the SAT or ACT exams.

Wake Forest University and Smith College just admitted their first class of applicants who could decline to submit SAT or ACT scores, while Sewanee and Fairfield University will do the same next year.

But is the “test optional” movement gaining steam, or running out of it?

That was a big question hanging over a college admissions conference hosted by Wake Forest this past week. The answer could come in the next few weeks as colleges set their policies for next year’s admissions cycle.

So far, several hundred colleges have gone test-optional for at least some students, including a small but growing number of more selective liberal arts schools.

“I don’t know if you can tell a tipping point until after it’s happened, but it’s very close,” said Bob Schaeffer, the gadfly testing critic who heads the group Fairtest. He said he’s heard from at least a dozen very selective institutions reviewing their admissions policies and expects more to drop testing requirements this spring.

But the vast majority of colleges still use standardized tests in admissions. The College Board, which owns the SAT, says only 45 schools are truly test-optional for all.

And the test-optional movement’s “big fish” is still out there. If an elite college with the name recognition of a Harvard University or Yale University dropped testing requirements, it could be a game-changer.

Launched in 1926, the SAT was devised as a merit-based leveler to replace the old-boys pipeline from prep schools to top colleges. The idea was to let students show their natural ability even if they didn’t come from the best schools.