With winter almost ending, high school students can be ready to bask in the spring sun as their finals start winding down. Or can they? Spring is one of the most common times for students to take the SAT. Although college admissions do not start until Senior year, high school students can be seen stressing about the SATs and/or the ACTs from the beginning of high school when they take the PSATs. “I first took the PSAT in tenth grade” Amenah Hamid, a high school junior, says. “But the stress surrounding it started years earlier from seeing my older sister and my friends’ older sisters go through it.” The SAT and ACT have been the standardized tests used for college here in the United States for decades, providing important information that is used to assess students’ academic ability.  But as of recent years the pandemic led to a temporary relaxing of the admissions’ rigid criteria, making these standard tests optional. As the pandemic ended the debate of whether or not standardized testing is truly accurate in assessing students’ academic ability grew, with some even arguing that the focus on academics takes focus away from students who are more in tune with their creative side.