College Entrance Exams Still Matter

 In the wake of COVID, many universities ditched college entrance exams as hurdles to admission for incoming students. Since then, many parents, students, and even educators have written these exams off. There's a rather pervasive attitude out there that ACT/SAT scores don't really matter anymore. 

I just looked through several Arkansas college websites to see if there's any point in even taking these exams anymore. What I found...

If you're independently wealthy and don't need financial aid, you probably won't need to worry about an ACT/SAT score. Most of these colleges still have no ACT/SAT score requirement to prevent your admission. But if you want to compete for scholarships, most universities still need these scores for you to have any hope to receive one. 

Some have scholarships that don't reference the scores, but these are mostly a drop in the bucket compared to the scholarships that do.

So, if you're a parent who wants your kid to compete for scholarships, tell your kid. If you're a kid, get your head on straight. Don't listen to the freshmen, sophomores, and juniors who've never been to college tell you you don't need a decent ACT score anymore. Don't listen to tweets and Facebook posts that tell you scores are no longer important.

Unless you want to throw away scholarship money that could be the difference in an education you can pay for and an education you'll spend the rest of your life paying for.