As the pandemic constantly challenges schools, students and regular procedures, many things, like tests, need to be changed. The pandemic has given us time to reassess things and rethink things. One question we should ask ourselves before things go back to normal: should we put a pause on college entrance exams, or even have them at all? The answer is that we should do away with them, but to understand why, we have to look at the facts and possibilities.

Some colleges are becoming temporarily test-optional. This means that for a while, entrance exams, such as the SAT and ACT, will not be considered for a certain people. A few colleges have gotten rid of the need for the tests permanently. While many of them are only test-optional for those who graduate high school in the year 2021, some of them have extended it by a year or more.

Let’s mention the point of how unfair that this is to future high school graduates. Many schools are only ignoring the test scores for 2021 graduates. Obviously, the virus messed everything up in many regards to testing, which is completely understandable.

Here is the problem: as someone who will graduate in 2022, this is one of the biggest punches in the face I ever got. I’m not saying that 2021 should have had the tests, but it is completely unfair to me, my graduating class, and many others after that. And my class has it better off than some other classes, because at least some colleges are ignoring the test scores for the year I graduate.

Another issue: the equilibrium offset that will inevitably occur between different colleges. With many colleges either ignoring scores altogether or just scores for some graduating classes, there will be many that are not. This can only cause an offset, which can be a problem. The way we can keep this from happening is we, collectively, get rid of these altogether.

Another offset can occur. In the schools that only temporarily ignore test scores, there will be a lot of students who took the tests and a lot of students who did not. This may cause problems in the school, such as more biased recognition to students who took the test from the school.

But despite COVID related issues, many other problems have occurred with these tests for many years.

There is a cost to SATs and ACTs as well, and that hurts some people.

“Currently, it costs  $47.50 to take the SAT ($64.50 with the Essay portion), and $22 for each of the SAT subject tests, not including the $26 registration fee. The ACT costs $50.50 ($67 with the Writing portion), and for each test there are extra costs for late registration. Advanced Placement (AP) tests cost $94,” Jaya Saxena from Vox says. To make matters worse, many college counselors suggest that people should take the test more than once. This may not be a big deal if someone has a good amount of money, but not everybody does. The people that don’t have a lot of money that need these tests to make a name for themselves in schools have a much harder time doing so. College tuition already costs too much for some people, and then the fact that having the (sometimes repeated) costs of the test is just horrendous. And for students paying more to take AP tests as well, that is just punishment for success in school.

Then there is test anxiety, which has also been occurring for a long time, and it perfectly illustrates why these tests were a bad idea at the start.

It’s no secret that a lot of people have test anxiety. But what may be surprising to some is that a 2010 study suggests that in between 10 to 40 percent of students have some kind of test anxiety. And it is much worse for standardized tests. A lot rides on college entrance exams, and for those who already have test anxiety, these would most likely be absolutely miserable for them.

According to Healthline , there are many symptoms of test-induced anxiety. Some physical symptoms include a large amount of sweating, shortness of breath, and painful headaches. These symptoms are bad already, and have been a problem long before Covid, but just imagine if they were now mistaken for COVID symptoms, causing them even more anxiety. Horrible, isn’t it? Two emotional symptoms include fear and hopelessness. And let’s not forget that this is talking about all types of tests. Just imagine high stake exams. Simply awful. This would obviously hinder the ability to perform, and therefore punish students even if they are truly smart people on the inside. The SAT, ACT and other tests like them do not care, and can simply not be trusted for this reason.

If we want to help society in the best way possible, if we want an equilibrium of colleges that do not require the exams or do, if we want an equilibrium of classes that did not take the tests or did, if we want to stop people from being hurt by test costs, and if we want to help those with test anxiety, we should fight for the end of college entrance exams!