SAT? ACT? No Longer Necessary For Ramapo College Enrollment

MAHWAH, NJ — Ramapo College has decided that when it comes to reviewing applicants, the SAT and ACT are for the birds. Just not the Roadrunners.

The college announced this week they would no longer require applicants to submit those test scores, instead moving to an optional test score model for the 2021-2022 admissions cycle.

"Ramapo College has found that a student’s high school grade point average is a far more reliable predictor of student success in College than is the student’s score on a standardized test. Our decision to shift to an SAT/ACT optional admissions practice recognizes this fact and furthers our long-held practice of considering the whole student when making admissions decisions," said Ramapo President Peter Mercer.

In January, a study conducted by Elaine M. Allensworth and Kallie Clark, both of the University of Chicago, found that a student's high school GPA is five times better at predicting whether a student will graduate from college than their ACT score.

Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Affairs Christopher Romano said, in a statement, that the college has been looking at this kind of data for a number of years.

"This data, coupled with the many known challenges and limitations of standardized testing, led us to move in this direction for the fall 2021 recruitment cycle," he said.

Ramapo isn't the first college in the state to make this move either. According to a Patch report, Montclair State University, Rowan University and others had already moved to the model as early as 2017.

Others, including Rutgers University and Princeton University, announced this year they would be moving to a test optional model in response to the coronavirus.

Though this test optional policy applies to most students, it doesn't apply to Ramapo's nursing or articulation programs, the college said.

The college will still require all first-year applicants to submit a high school diploma, letter of recommendation and an essay to be considered for undergraduate admission.

Have a news tip or press release you’d like to submit? Need to request a correction? Email montana.samuels@patch.com

Subscribe to your local Patch newsletter. You can also have them delivered to your phone screen by downloading, or by visiting the Google Play store.