Students seeking to enroll at 23 of Georgia’s public universities for the 2024-2025 school year won’t need to take the ACT or SAT college exam to gain admission.
Sonny Perdue, chancellor of the University System of Georgia, recommended waiving the admissions requirement at all but three of the system’s most academically rigorous schools: Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia and Georgia College & State University.
The Georgia Board of Regents on Wednesday agreed with the plan, which still requires students to meet grade-point average thresholds as part of the admissions process. Test scores also are needed to qualify for the Georgia Lottery-funded Zell Miller Scholarship.
The University System previously exempted most of its schools from requiring test scores for students seeking to enroll this fall.
The University System, like many colleges across the nation, halted the test requirement in 2020 because of the challenges in administering the exams during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We got the data from the fall. It looks promising regarding those students who were admitted just on GPA and not standardized testing,” Perdue said. “At this time next year, we will have better data based on the decision you all made regarding the three universities.”
Dana Nichols, the system’s vice chancellor for academic affairs, told the board that nearly 79% of accredited colleges that offer bachelor’s degrees are currently test-optional. That includes many public colleges in neighboring states, including North Carolina and Alabama.
The test scores were briefly required for admission in the spring of 2022 before the University System, citing a higher number of incomplete applications, waived the mandate again at all but the three schools.
In September, the University System announced only two schools — UGA and Georgia Tech — would require test scores for students seeking to enroll in the fall of 2023 through the summer of 2024.
Perdue acknowledged concerns that reinstating the test requirement at Georgia College will lead to fewer students enrolling there. He pledged to hold the college financially harmless for enrollment declines it can attribute to the test mandate.
Making admission decisions using both grades as well as test scores remains the best predictor of college success, Perdue said.
But first-year, freshman academic data showed flat or slightly increasing grade-point averages, retention rates and earned credit hours from 2017 to 2022 even with the test-optional policy.
Competition with test-optional states is one reason Georgia officials have been wary to mandate the exams. They said some students never applied to Georgia colleges when the test requirement was briefly reinstated.
“Students were getting advice, ‘Don’t even apply because you can go here without those test scores,’” said Scot Lingrell, the system’s vice chancellor for enrollment management and student affairs.
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