In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic grabbed America with an unprecedented grip. As pieces of everyday life shut down, many schools switched to remote learning to educate students. The past couple of years were filled with uncertainty, online learning and perhaps hybrid in-person/online schooling. Students feeling any kind of anxiety, or extra anxiety, during this time shouldn’t feel like they’re alone.

The concept of “test optional” in college admissions is something that’s been around long before the pandemic.  Bowdoin College in Maine was the first to go test optional in 1969, and beyond that, the modern test-optional movement started in the mid-1980s, according to Bob Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest.org.  By the late 1980s, Fair Test had a report called Beyond Standardized tests listing the schools, about a couple dozen, that did not require test scores as part of the college admissions process.