SMWC standardized tests to become optional

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (Inside INdiana Business) — Undergraduate students applying for fall 2020 classes at Saint-Mary-of-the-Woods College will be the first to experience a fully test-optional admissions process. The new policy allows would-be students to pick whether to submit their ACT or SAT scores as part of the admissions process. GPA and high school curriculum will be evaluation points who choose test-optional, and if a student chooses to submit their scores, they will be used in the overall process. 

“Research indicates that a test is not necessarily the best determining factor for student success in college,” said Brennan Randolph, vice president for enrollment management and information technology. 

SMWC is still encouraging potential applicants to take the standardized tests and to submit them during the admissions process. School officials say submitting those test scores will allow administrators to consider students for more scholarships, and will also make them eligible for certain scholarships, like the full-tuition Saint Mother Theodore Guerin Scholarship.

SMWC joins over 1,000 other schools who have chosen the test-optional route. This move comes on the heels of another announcement that beginning in fall 2020, tuition will be guaranteed for full-time students enrolling for eight semesters of undergraduate classes.