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More Colleges Than Ever Have Test-Optional Admissions Policies (theconversation.com)
Back in the 1980s, Bates College and Bowdoin College were nearly the only liberal arts colleges not to require applicants to submit SAT or ACT test scores. On Jan. 10, FairTest, a Boston-based organization that has been pushing back against America's testing regime since 1985, announced that the number of colleges that are test-optional has now surpassed 1,000. From a report: This milestone means that more than one-third of America's four-year nonprofit colleges now reject the idea that a test score should strongly determine a student's future. The ranks of test-optional institutions include hundreds of prestigious private institutions, such as George Washington, New York University, Wesleyan University and Wake Forest University. The list also includes hundreds of public universities, such as George Mason, San Francisco State and Old Dominion.
To be a doctor, you need to do well on the MCAT, get into med school, take the USMLE, and get a residency. Or get into a combined medical program out of high school and still pass the USMLE and get a residency.
Engineering in life-critical fields involves passing the FE and PE exams. Not trivial.
There will still be standard exams as gatekeepers for both fields.
I've listened to admissions people, since my own kids are in high school now. The reason admissions offices are dropping the test requirement is that it no longer has a strong correlation with college success. That's it. The colleges are not dumbing anything down; to the contrary, admissions offices are widening the scope of their criteria in an effort to find the things that DO correlate with success.
The SAT is broken and doesn't serve anyone but the College Board. Good by and good riddance to it.