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Do you even need the SAT or ACT?

Almost no college makes you take one. The few that do are the ones people want most, so it comes down to your list.

Written by the Sidequest team. Reviewed 2026-09-05.

5%
of the 1,146 colleges on the Common App require a test score

Last year 5% of the 1,146 colleges you can apply to on the Common App required an SAT or ACT score. Every other one let you decide whether to send it. So for most people the plain answer is no, you do not need it.

It is moving, though, and which way matters if you are not applying this year. In 2019, 55% of those colleges required a score. By 2023 it was down to 4%, the lowest it has ever been. It is 5% now and heading back up, so a sophomore should expect a longer list of colleges wanting one by the time they apply.

The catch is who is in that 5%. It is mostly the hardest colleges in the country to get into, and one big state university after another has been putting the requirement back. If a college like that is on your list, you are taking the test.

It runs the other way too. The University of California will not look at a score on any of its campuses, so sending one there does nothing at all.

Which makes this a ten minute job rather than a decision. Pull up the five colleges you care about, find the admissions page, and read what it says about testing. That list is the only one that decides it for you.

Who requires one

Five colleges, and what each one wants right now.

  • HarvardRequired

    The SAT or the ACT. AP or IB results stand in only if you genuinely cannot get to a test center.

  • MITRequired

    The SAT or the ACT, for people applying as first years and for transfers.

  • UT AustinRequired

    Back to required for anyone starting in 2025 or later, after four years of it being your choice.

  • PrincetonYour call, this year

    Apply this year without a score and it will not count against you. Anyone applying a year later has to send one.

  • University of CaliforniaNever looked at

    A score plays no part in who gets in or who gets scholarship money.

Your own list is the one that counts, and every college publishes this on its admissions page.

Optional does not mean nobody sends one

More than half of applicants now send a score, and that share is climbing.

For four years after 2020 most people applied without a score. Last year that flipped: the number of applicants sending one grew 11% while the number not sending one fell 5%, and senders came out ahead for the first time since 2019.

What it means for you is simpler than it sounds. If you have a score you are happy with, send it, even where it is optional. If you do not, the college has said in writing that it will read you without one, and hundreds of thousands of people take it at its word every year.

The people least likely to send a score are the ones with the least money and the ones whose parents did not go to college. That gap is a big part of why so many colleges made the test optional in the first place.

If one college on your list wants it, take it early

Sit it in the spring of junior year, so there is room to sit it again.

A first score in the spring leaves you a second try in the fall of senior year, before applications close. That gap alone is worth about a point on the ACT, mostly because you spend it in class.

Take it once even if none of your colleges require it, as long as you can do it free. A score you never send costs you nothing. A score you turn out to need and do not have costs you the application.

What the application looks like without one

Everything else gets read harder, and grades carry the most weight.

Take the score out and what is left is your transcript, what you wrote, and what your teachers say about you. Colleges read all of that anyway. Without a number in front of it they read it more closely.

So the thing still worth your effort is the grade trend in your hardest classes, and it counts for a lot more than one Saturday morning does.

Try the work, not just the test

Even a perfect score only says you are good at sitting exams. There is no version of this test that tells you which work you would want to spend your life on. You answer that one by trying some of it.

Find a career to try

Questions people ask

Does applying without a score hurt me?
At a college that says the test is optional, no. It reads your application without one, the way it says it will. At a college that requires one, an application with no score is not read at all.
Do I still need a score for scholarships?
Sometimes, and this catches people out. Plenty of merit scholarships, especially at state universities, keep a score cutoff even where admission does not. Check the scholarship page, not the admissions page.
What about the PSAT?
It does not go to colleges. Its one real use is the National Merit program, which reads the one you take in junior year.
When do I have to decide?
Before you register, and test dates fill up. Work backwards from the earliest application deadline on your list and leave room to take it twice before then.

Where these numbers come from

See the other guides