I've been wary of letting students or parents get excited about this development (see link below to WSJ article about more schools going “optional” this year) in that what's clearly going to happen is that high-scoring students will report scores, and weaker testers won't. This will - whatever schools may claim about being "testing-optional" - inevitably put the students who don't test or don't report at a disadvantage. We're still quite a ways (3-5 years, if ever?) from "testing optional" really meaning that students who test and those who don't will be on equal footing in admissions. If/when those same schools who are going "optional" start *refusing* to look at SAT/ACT/AP results at all, that will be another story.
Thus, especially since students may only get to take the SAT or ACT once instead of multiple times, because of corona cancellations of test dates, I am encouraging students to, if anything, prep thoroughly for the *first* time they take the tests (as opposed to waiting to see how they do the first time) more seriously than ever this year.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cornell-to-drop-sat-and-act-for-admissions-next-year-due-to-coronavirus-11587578439
