Standardized Testing in the COVID era

[arcturus]

I've read several articles regarding the changing perspective on the use of standardized testing (SAT/ACT/GRE) in admissions for undergraduate/graduate programs. Many schools were already thinking about going test-optional before COVID-19. Is your institution changing its admissions criteria? Do you think it is appropriate to make these changes, regardless of the issues associated with standardized testing in a non-standardized universe?

[research_prof]

My uni is waiving SAT/ACT, but not GRE/Toefl/IELTS. They claim that students can take the latter tests online.

I have not been involved in undergraduate education much, since I am primarily interested in recruiting graduate students to conduct research. To this end, I cannot comment on SAT/ACT, but I do have a strong opinion about GRE. I usually receive about 20 student applications for every round of admissions (our PhD admissions run twice every year). I have to say that I have talked to smart and capable students that I would be happy to fund, but they could not officially apply to the PhD program due to GRE; some of them had financial problems and they could not pay for the exam, some took the exam but did not do well. To me, personally, GRE scores do not say much (*if anything at all*), because I hire students based on potential and motivation. I also believe that they do not say much about the students' overall potential either.

To add something more: Students that come from countries that are not as developed or affluent, they face a real struggle applying for grad school in the US, because they simply do not have the $$$ to take the exams and pay the application fees. One of my PhD students (who has turned out to be great!) had to work for more than a year in his home country to be able to afford to *just apply* to a couple PhD programs in the US. Of course, financial status says absolutely nothing about the ability of the students. I have been pushing hard for conditional offers to our PhD program (i.e., we admit you, you commit that you will come, then you can take GRE) as a first step to encourage people to start thinking that GRE does not mean much in terms of admissions, but I have not been successful so far.