I completely agree. This is honestly such a BS thing. While I acknowledge that many people are hesitant to take the SAT because of this pandemic and our personal safeties should come before a superficial test score, many are just submitting test optional because they did terrible and know they are better off not sending their scores. I live in Cali and let me just say, there are definitely a ton of opportunities to take the SAT. Even during the most deadly stage of lockdown in Los Angeles, there were at least 20 schools within a 10 mile radius that I could sign up and take the SATs, not to mention there were extremely safe protocols. Many schools are giving the SATs and many students are actually taking it, even limiting tests for juniors only in order to limit overcrowding. People just aren’t submitting scores because they know that sub 1200 sat score will ruin their chances at a T20. I feel like testing is especially important this year because of all the online cheating and grade inflation, but because they decided to disregard test scores, Class of 2026 is screwed as well because of this unauthentic academic demonstration.