DeKALB | NIU will still take into account a student’s ACT and SAT scores when deciding whether to accept them into the university.

NIU admissions director Brandon Lagana said this in response to an announcement made by DePaul University in February. The private university announced that it will regard ACT and SAT scores submitted to DePaul as being optional, beginning in fall 2012.

According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jon Boeckenstedt, associate vice president for Enrollment Policy & Planning at DePaul, made the decision to go this route feeling there were more ways an incoming student can be judged.

“While the tests are good predictors by themselves, they tend to co-vary strongly with high school [grade point average], that is, if one is high, the other tends to be high as well,” Boeckenstendt said in an e-mail. “So the extent to which they add much over and above the high school GPA is negligible.”

Lagana said, however, that ACTs and SATs have value in the recruiting process and are pieces that are evaluated for a student’s performance.

Junior geology major Zach Joiner said adopting a different admissions process could be a good thing. He felt that making test scores optional gives students the opportunity to show they are college material without standardize testing.

Freshman chemistry major Garrett Carlson said he feels it would take pressure off of students coming out of high school.

“The main part in getting into college is that people don’t apply to colleges that have a higher SAT score and ACT score then that allows them to get in,” Carlson said.

He also stated if he didn’t earn a high ACT score like a 24 or 25 then he wouldn’t have gotten into NIU.

Joy Newman, a junior health and administration major, said not everybody can handle standardize testing. She said she felt the SAT and ACT shows only a students’ test taking abilities rather than intelligence.

“I’d probably put in an interview and then a maybe a basic skills test or something like that,” Newman said.