Our generation lives in a very lucky world, because after the pandemic, a ton of schools (almost all of them) decided to go test-optional or test-blind, which meant that taking the SAT or ACT was no longer required to apply to colleges. However, this fact does nothing to convince parents that spending the time junior or senior year taking the SAT/ACT is completely unnecessary, so I will lay out the facts here: 

1. SATs/ACTs take up a lot of money and time, spending money on a tutor or workbooks or what have you for something that won’t really be considered in your application is pretty pointless, it's better to save the money to spend it on things like application fees or equipment to help with prescreens

2. If you do take these tests, they need to be absolutely outstanding for them to actually count in your favor, so if you take them and you did mediocre, it’s really even worth putting them on the application

3. SATs/ACTs don’t show the passion and the personality of the applicant, it’s just a standardized test, the things that really matter on an application are what students are passionate about and what they believe in/work towards

4. Seriously, don’t put yourself through all that stress just for it to not matter

Of course, there are always some positive factors to taking the SAT/ACT. Some schools offer merit-based scholarships to those with a high enough SAT, and some could use it as a distinguishing factor between candidates if they need a tiebreaker. But overall, it really just isn’t necessary. And trust me, if I got into Carnegie Mellon without an SAT score, you’ll be completely fine.