Sydney Martinez, Campus Carrier news editor
Berry is a test-optional school that accepts test scores a student believes will enhance their application when applying to college. Senior Associate Director of Admission Trevor Ehrenheim said that Berry accepts the newer Classic Learning Test (CLT), which focuses on the humanities and classical authors, in addition to the SAT and ACT. Berry has been willing to accept the CLT since Aug. 1, 2020 when they adopted a test-optional policy for the admission cycle.
The CLT is a lesser-known standardized test that is an alternative to the ACT and SAT for students, emphasizing critical and logical thinking through passages from authors that have shaped history and culture such as Thomas Hobbes and Martin Luther King Jr.
Ehrenheim said he noticed the exam seems to be taken by students who had a humanities-focused education during high school and are looking to study at a liberal arts college.
“I can see the connection between students coming from more classical-focused high school experiences, looking for liberal arts colleges that might have a focus towards religious life opportunities,” Ehrenheim said. “But I shouldn’t say that it’s exclusively that, that was just a small pattern I noticed.”
Ehrenheim said that the CLT is accepted by many private liberal arts colleges that focus more on the humanities and religious life.
“Our neighbors up in Chattanooga Covenant College, Wheaton College [and] Biola University all were listed on the Classic Learning Test website as partners for them.”
Ehrenheim said that Berry has been a test-optional institution since 2020 because the COVID-19 pandemic lowered students’ chances of applying to colleges if they weren’t able to take a college entrance exam.
“[The COVID-19 pandemic] kind of accelerated [the test-optional policy] conversations,” Ehrenheim said. “Back when we required test scores as a requirement to be considered for admission, a lot of students didn’t have their test scores because their dates got canceled.”
Ehrenheim said whichever score a prospective student chooses to submit with their application won’t have a major effect on their chances of being accepted to Berry. The admissions office often looks at a student’s GPA to determine whether they would be a good fit for Berry.
“Research shows that high school GPAs are often a better indicator of a student’s ability to succeed in college than a standardized test score,” Ehrenheim said. “Not that standardized test scores aren’t helpful, but I think that’s a lot of colleges’ justifications for being test optional.”
Ehrenheim said that since the CLT is more recent, the admission team has not encountered a significant number of CLT scores.
“I spoke with my team, and they shared with me that we haven’t really encountered any CLT scores in our admissions process this year,” Ehrenheim said. “That may be because the test is still relatively new, but it sounds like it’s steadily gaining traction in the state of Georgia. I wouldn’t be surprised if students who will be applying to Berry start asking about it more in the near future.”
Sophomore Madison Lindner, a graduate of Rome High School, took the SAT because it was offered more often than the ACT at her school, but she didn’t have a preference for any exam. She also noted that the ACT would have been better for her to take because it focused more on vocabulary.
“I just did the SAT because that’s what most colleges took, but I heard the ACT was better if you had a stronger vocab,” Lindner said. “I don’t think Rome was having an ACT session for a while, so I was just like, ‘I’m just going to do the SAT because they’re having it this Saturday.’”
Ehrenheim suggested that if prospective students want to submit a test score, they should pick the exam in which they would excel the most.
“My best advice to students would just be to pick the test that they think would highlight their strengths the best,” Ehrenheim said. “If they chose not to submit any of them, that won’t hurt their chances of admission here at Berry, given our test-optional policy.”
Ehrenheim said he doesn’t see the CLT replacing the ACT or SAT any time soon, but it is an exam score that Berry will accept as an alternative to the popular college entrance exams.
“I don’t think, at least here at Berry, it would ever replace the SAT or ACT scores because those are so broadly known,” Ehrenheim said. “I can see the Classic Learning Test as just an additional option for students that we’d be really happy to consider.”