It may be difficult for the University of Missouri system to shift away from its policy of no longer requiring the SAT or ACT before entering college. That was the conclusion of some UM System Curators who heard statistics Tuesday about how the policy is affecting enrollment.
Colleges across the country are preparing for what’s become known as the “enrollment cliff” – a decline in the number of college-age students expected in the next few years.
It’s one reason – the Covid-19 pandemic being another – that more than a thousand schools no longer require an SAT or ACT score for admission.
The change has affected the UM system in different ways. The biggest change, said Interim Vice Provost for Enrollment Management Rhonda Gibler, is boosted enrollment.
“We have seen significant growth in applications from students who ask to be reviewed on a test-optional basis,” Gibler said.
However, as the Curators noted, these students often aren’t eligible for top scholarships.
The data also show test-optional students tend to have lower grade point averages and retention rates.
At the Missouri University of Science and Technology, only about 60% of test-optional students returned for their junior year, compared to about 75% of all other students.
However, the data are somewhat different for the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
Vice Chancellor for Strategic Enrollment Reggie Hill noted his school has a high percentage of non-traditional students — either adults going to college later in life or those with some college credits who go back to school after a break. Still, Hill said there’s been a noticeable uptick in first-time enrollees which coincides with the move to test-optional policies.
“Fall of ’21, UMSL enrolled just over 250 first-time college students," he said. "By fall of ’24, this number has nearly doubled to just over 500 students.”
UM System enrollment managers noted many other Midwestern schools — against whom UM schools compete for students — have moved to test-optional policies since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
They referred to highly-competitive schools such as Harvard, Stanford and Brown, which have reinstated the need for a test score as part of an application, as "outliers" in the collegiate landscape.
