the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

I would have expected the status quo there, kind of like the supplier market. I mean seriously, people think banning the cr@p has changed market economics? All this does is legitimize the black market.

What a pack of suckers.

good read if you're from "that time".............

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/news/ramblin-round-buffalo-springfield-beginning-153300910.html[/URL]

how ironic....

*A suspected poacher was killed by a herd of breeding elephants that he encountered while fleeing from park rangers, according to South African officials.

Three people attempted to run away after they were spotted by rangers at the Kruger National Park, one of Africa's largest game reserves, on Saturday, South African National Parks officials said.

After one of the suspects was captured, he told park rangers the group had run into a herd of elephants, adding that he was not sure if his alleged accomplice had managed to escape, officials said.

Rangers later discovered the man "badly trampled" and dead from his injuries.

Investigators say they are still searching for the third suspect, who continued to flee after he suffered an injury to the eye.
The men are suspected of attempting to poach rhinos, according to officials. A rifle and axe were recovered amid the investigation, officials said.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/gma/suspected-poacher-killed-elephants-south-174131627.html[/URL]*

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/autos/tire-slasher-leaves-severed-finger-145700425.html[/URL]

:oops:

*An Arizona woman called the police after she found a Halloween-like sight in her driveway. She noticed that someone had slashed her SUV's tires, and a closer look revealed the perpetrator left part of a finger behind.

"I literally have been laughing all day because if I don't, I might cry," Francesca Wikoff told Maricopa-based news channel [KCTV5]('https://www.kctv5.com/arizona-woman-finds-tires-slashed-and-a-severed-finger-in-her-driveway/article_cc05a9da-d593-511d-9300-a15af8a8235b.html'). She's a former EMT, so she's used to seeing gore, but the discovery came as a big surprise.

While photos taken at the crime scene were blurred by police officers before being released to the media, we can tell the slasher left a good chunk of a finger in Wikoff's driveway. It's not just a small bruise. It must have hurt, too. One of her neighbors said he heard a loud scream and a car [speeding]('https://www.autoblog.com/tag/speeding/') off about 10:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 15.

Even without fingerprints, and part of the finger they belong to, finding who slashed the GMC [Suburban's]('https://www.autoblog.com/chevrolet/suburban/') tires was simple. Wikoff told investigators she found a trail of blood that starts at the SUV and leads to the house of a neighbor she argued with before the rubber and flesh carnage. What's more mysterious is why he left the finger.

"It's pretty comical. You would think that if you're gonna go to the hospital, especially if you just severed your finger off, that you would take said finger with you," she told KCTV5.
As of writing, investigators haven't been able to find and interrogate the neighbor, but they put the finger in a brown paper bag, presumably to perform DNA tests.*

good read if you're from "that time".............

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/news/ramblin-round-buffalo-springfield-beginning-153300910.html[/URL]

Yeah that would be me. i love CSN&Y . of course in those days i was married with 3 chillins.
:giggle:

Yeah that would be me. i love CSN&Y . of course in those days i was married with 3 chillins.
:giggle:

and I sir minus the wife & child

Whattsa matta witha de birdsa????

[HEADING=2]On the Menu at a Lunch in Italy: Protected Songbirds[/HEADING]
The Italian police were called to investigate a luncheon for a potential violation of coronavirus rules. They found a feast of migrating finches.

ROME — It seemed like just another violation of coronavirus social-distance restrictions when the Italian police broke up a luncheon of about 20 people last week near the northern city of Brescia.

But then they stumbled onto an illegal massacre on the menu.

The authorities caught the group in a local government building preparing a cookout of about 65 protected migratory birds, mostly finches, including two hawfinches, a shy species, and one brambling, known by its orange breast and white rump.

The forest division of the carabinieri, Italy’s national military police force, were tipped off about the illegal lunchtime gathering by a phone call and found the guests surrounding a buffet of appetizers and drinks but no main courses. The guests assured the police that everything was within regulations, with masks on and distance respected. But upon further inspection, carabinieri officers found a large pan filled with dozens of fried songbirds hidden beneath the table.

They recognized the protected species, officers said, by the shape of their bills. Some are globally threatened.

“Shameful,” Italy’s anti-hunting league said.

“Enraging,” the animal protection league said.

“A delicacy,” said Floriano Massardi, a regional official who, like many in the area, likes to eat songbirds on a skewer.

The area where the forbidden feast took place, Gardone Val Trompia, is smack in the middle of an important migration route for thrushes, greenfinches and blackbirds.

For centuries, hunters in the area have laid traps for them in the bushes and on tree branches or shot them out of the sky. Whether captured on the ground or in the air, they often met their end next to polenta or impaled on “the Brescian spit.”

But the local tradition has become largely illegal as legislators have moved to protect a growing number of species and bird families. Nevertheless, the valleys north of Brescia have remained Italy’s most dangerous kill zone for many songbirds, with hundreds of thousands hunted illegally every year.

Italy itself is an avian danger zone. Five million protected birds are shot dead there every year. That’s about a fifth of the total birds illegally killed every year along the Mediterranean coast, Northern Europe and the Caucasus, [according to BirdLife International]('http://www.birdlife.org/illegal-killing').

Animal protection associations said they hoped the raid would put new focus on the illegal activity in the country that is the most egregious songbird killer in Europe.

The punishment for those who attended the lunch will depend on what charges are brought, but the fine could be more than 2,000 euros for the guest who brought the birds.

Last week, a Brescia court held the first hearing of a local man who kept 788 dead songbirds in his freezer. They included robins, which are sold illegally for 3 to 5 euros to restaurants. They are particularly appreciated for their thin bill, which is, for some, considered edible.

In Italy, hunting any animal is permitted only with a license, and there are penalties for hunting protected species and selling them. For years, the issue has been at the center of a political clash between animal rights advocates often backed by progressive politicians — which have demanded stricter limitations — and hunters’ associations and conservative politicians, who aim to facilitate hunting.

Animal rights activists point out that songbirds are in danger throughout Europe, with 40 once-abundant migratory species disappearing.

“There is a general crisis of biodiversity,” said Annamaria Procacci, a board member of ENPA, Italy’s animal protection league, and a former Green Party senator.

“And then there are people feasting on it.”

Mr. Massardi, the official who called the protected bramblings a delicacy, is a hunter who has proposed removing protections for some songbirds, including those on Friday’s menu. He said he wanted to save tradition.

He was acting “in the name of the Brescian spit,” he said, a typical dish made of skewered slices of pork, chicken, rabbit and songbirds. The chaffinch and the brambling, he said, give the spit a distinctive tart taste that he has not savored for 10 years.

Mr. Massardi did not condone Friday’s luncheon, saying it was an offense to all the restaurant owners suffering the closures imposed by the government. But he did not see why the government should forbid what was on the table.

“I don’t understand why chicken, yes, and these birds, no,” he said. “Chickens are birds, too.”

Poor bramblings don't stand a chance. "a buffet of appetizers and drinks but no main courses." How could they without Pasta ?? o_O :giggle:

And from today's Cancel Culture and Political Correctness Files. My HS Mascot was a Tiger, and in retrospect, that must have alienated folks who didn't like felines...

[HEADING=2]Falmouth’s ‘Yachtie’ mascot could get the heave-ho[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2021/04/20/falmouths-yachtie-mascot-could-get-the-heave-ho/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2021/04/20/falmouths-yachtie-mascot-could-get-the-heave-ho/')

By Chance VilesApril 20, 2021
[]('')
“Yachtie” Contributed / Falmouth Schools

If some students get their way, Falmouth High School will get rid of “Yachtie,” the school’s mascot, and the “snooty” Yachtsmen team name along with him.

The town, in a survey that closed Sunday, has been seeking residents’ opinions on changing the team name. The findings of that survey, conducted on behalf of the school board, and ideas for new mascots will be shared at a future meeting.
[]('')
Falmouth High School sophomore Caroline Rozan said she and other students want a mascot that better represents the school.

The high school and middle school civil rights team presented the findings of their schoolwide surveys to the school board a few months ago. Of the students responding to the survey administered in their home rooms, 60% said they actively dislike the mascot. Representing a white man and the wealthy sport of yachting, the mascot and the team name do not represent the study body, they said. And, both lack the energy befitting athletes’ fighting spirit, they said.

“Being a minority, the only one on a team, and having a white mascot does not make me feel included,” sophomore Caroline Rozan, a student athlete and civil rights team member told The Forecaster.

“I remember I was playing in Casco, and a girl said ‘you go to Falmouth? That’s a white school.‘ People give you a look,” said Rozan, who played hockey and is on the track team.

“People of different sex origins don’t feel included. The Yachtsman is a rich white man with a yacht. It makes Falmouth sound snooty,” she said.

She and other students say they’ve heard disparaging remarks about the Yachtsmen name and mascot from other schools. A student from another school told Rozan the Yachtsmen “sounds like daddy’s money,” she said.
[]('')
A undated newspaper cartoon portrays a player on the Yachtsmen basketball team. Courtesy photo / Falmouth Schools

The civil rights team’s survey showed that at least 60% of respondents find no school pride in Yachtie, as evidenced by the fact that his likeness is found nowhere on campus. Students have more pride in the ship’s wheel depicted on the school crest and exhibited through campus, they said.

Working off the ship’s wheel, Rozan said one of her ideas for a name replacement name is the Navigators.

“Navigators has no connotations to race, sex, gender or age,” but also is still acknowledges sailing and the compass around the school, Rozan said.

At a February School Committee meeting, Chairperson Whitney Bruce said this issue is important to the board, and they want more input.

“The goal of a mascot is to unite rather than divide them or leave them feeling ambivalent,” Bruce said. “It’d be a missed opportunity to unite and have spirit.”

Oddly enough, the Yachtsmen name came about because of a sports writer’s mistake, according to an old but undated newspaper article provided Bruce provided to The Forecaster. The article said the sportswriter mistook a clipper ship depicted on a Falmouth basketball player’s team jacket for a yacht and called the team the Yachtsmen in a sports story. The name stuck.

According to David Farnham of the Falmouth Historical Society, the name first appeared in newspapers in a Dec. 12, 1948, issue of the Portland Press Herald, in a story titled “Scarborough Faces Tough Test Friday,” and the oldest reference to the name in the school yearbooks was in 1950.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Ms. Jenner's "anatomical makeover" prevent it from making this statement???

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]‘I’m in!’: Caitlyn Jenner running for governor of California[/SIZE][/HEADING]

The Olympic hero, reality TV personality and longtime Republican joins a growing list of candidates seeking to oust Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom from office.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Ms. Jenner's "anatomical makeover" prevent it from making this statement???

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]‘I’m in!’: Caitlyn Jenner running for governor of California[/SIZE][/HEADING]

The Olympic hero, reality TV personality and longtime Republican joins a growing list of candidates seeking to oust Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom from office.

Well as far as i'm conserned , Mr/Ms Jenner is in the right state !! What a joke.

Although being from Cali. He/She has a good chance of "Getting in". :p

Well as far as i'm conserned , Mr/Ms Jenner is in the right state !! What a joke.

Although being from Cali. He/She has a good chance of "Getting in". :p

I think he/she is "concealed carry". Still capable of "getting in".

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/news/japan-man-arrested-dating-35-152935505.html[/URL]

I think he/she is "concealed carry". Still capable of "getting in".

Jenner underwent cosmetic surgery, and ultimately completed [sex reassignment surgery]('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_reassignment_surgery_(male-to-female)') in January 2017.[[10]]('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caitlyn_Jenner#cite_note-:0-10') o_O

A Texas woman learned she was a wanted felon for not returning a 22-year-old VHS tape.
Caron McBride — who rented the copy of “Sabrina the Teenage Witch” in 1999 — was charged with felony embezzlement after the tape was not returned.
[[IMG alt="Woman who didn’t return VHS tape for 22 years charged with felony"]https://external-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQHL22wGekFmtCkw&w=500&h=261&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nydailynews.com%2Fresizer%2FScVbnMpPUJai_8WSgIffe8bY2qw%3D%2F1200x0%2Fleft%2Ftop%2Fcloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com%2Ftronc%2FSIP5R4MFCJECVBY2K64SQNQSRQ.jpg&cfs=1&ext=jpg&ccb=3-5&_nc_hash=AQHJ5LNTe2sefU13[/IMG]
]('https://trib.al/rGPbc5W?fbclid=IwAR1rOWrX3NA1BZ25n9a1kYLLZnv9vvklUFgVUmLLyg-_j5Ax4llOFJZj_VU')

[NYDAILYNEWS.COM
Woman who didn’t return VHS tape for 22 years charged with felony]('https://trib.al/rGPbc5W?fbclid=IwAR2c4BtDaOo-jEtd0m_JkvK4SBbZ7AlefA-bC60viZZohTB6ZI4pwxAjM-M')

Talk about living under a rock...

[HEADING=2]Out of the cave: French isolation study ends after 40 days[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2021/04/24/out-of-the-cave-french-isolation-study-ends-after-40-days/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2021/04/24/out-of-the-cave-french-isolation-study-ends-after-40-days/')

By RENATA BRITOApril 24, 2021
LOMBRIVES CAVE, France — Ever wonder what it would feel like to unplug from a hyperconnected world and hide away in a dark cave for 40 days?

Fifteen people in France did just that, emerging Saturday from a scientific experiment to say that time seemed to pass more slowly in their cavernous underground abode in southwestern France, where they were deprived of clocks and light.

With big smiles on their pale faces, the 15 left their voluntary isolation in the Lombrives cave to a round of applause and basked in the light while wearing special glasses to protect their eyes after so long in the dark.

“It was like pressing pause,” said 33-year-old Marina Lançon, one of the seven female members in the experiment, adding she didn’t feel there was a rush to do anything.

[[IMG alt="France_Cave_Researchers_20968"]https://multifiles.pressherald.com/uploads/sites/10/2021/04/France_Cave_Researchers_20968.jpg[/IMG]]('')
Members of the French team that participated in the “Deep Time” study emerge from the Lombrives Cave after 40 days underground in Ussat les Bains, France, Saturday. Renata Brito/Associated Press

Although she wished she could have stayed in the cave a few days longer, she said she was happy to feel the wind blowing on her face again and hear the birds sing in the trees of the French Pyrénées. And she doesn’t plan to open her smartphone for a few more days, hoping to avoid a “too brutal” return to real life.

For 40 days and 40 nights, the group lived in and explored the cave as part of the “Deep Time” project. There was no sunlight inside, the temperature was 50 F and the relative humidity stood at 100 percent. The cave dwellers had no contact with the outside world, no updates on the pandemic nor any communications with friends or family.

Scientists at the Human Adaption Institute leading the $1.5 million “Deep Time” project say the experiment will help them better understand how people adapt to drastic changes in living conditions and environments.

As expected, those in the cave lost their sense of time.

“And here we are! We just left after 40 days … For us it was a real surprise,” said project director Christian Clot, adding for most participants, “in our heads, we had walked into the cave 30 days ago.”

At least one team member estimated the time underground at 23 days.

Johan Francois, 37, a math teacher and sailing instructor, ran 10-kilometer circles in the cave to stay fit. He sometimes had “visceral urges” to leave.

With no daily obligations and no children around, the challenge was “to profit from the present moment without ever thinking about what will happen in one hour, in two hours,” he said.

In partnership with labs in France and Switzerland, scientists monitored the 15 subjects’ sleep patterns, social interactions and behavioral reactions via sensors. One sensor was a tiny thermometer inside a capsule that participants swallowed like a pill. It measured body temperatures and transmitted data to a computer until it was expelled naturally.

The team members followed their biological clocks to know when to wake up, go to sleep and eat. They counted their days not in hours but in sleep cycles.

On Friday, scientists monitoring the participants entered the cave to let the research subjects know they would be coming out soon.

“It’s really interesting to observe how this group synchronizes themselves,” Clot said earlier in a recording from inside the cave. Working together on projects and organizing tasks without being able to set a time to meet was especially challenging, he said.

Although the participants looked visibly tired Saturday, two-thirds expressed a desire to remain underground a bit longer in order to finish group projects started during the expedition, Benoit Mauvieux, a chronobiologist involved in the research, told the Associated Press.

“Our future as humans on this planet will evolve,” Clot said after emerging. “We must learn to better understand how our brains are capable of finding new solutions, whatever the situation.”

Talk about living under a rock...

[HEADING=2]Out of the cave: French isolation study ends after 40 days[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2021/04/24/out-of-the-cave-french-isolation-study-ends-after-40-days/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2021/04/24/out-of-the-cave-french-isolation-study-ends-after-40-days/')

By RENATA BRITOApril 24, 2021
LOMBRIVES CAVE, France — Ever wonder what it would feel like to unplug from a hyperconnected world and hide away in a dark cave for 40 days?

Fifteen people in France did just that, emerging Saturday from a scientific experiment to say that time seemed to pass more slowly in their cavernous underground abode in southwestern France, where they were deprived of clocks and light.

With big smiles on their pale faces, the 15 left their voluntary isolation in the Lombrives cave to a round of applause and basked in the light while wearing special glasses to protect their eyes after so long in the dark.

“It was like pressing pause,” said 33-year-old Marina Lançon, one of the seven female members in the experiment, adding she didn’t feel there was a rush to do anything.

[[IMG alt="France_Cave_Researchers_20968"]https://multifiles.pressherald.com/uploads/sites/10/2021/04/France_Cave_Researchers_20968.jpg[/IMG]]('')
Members of the French team that participated in the “Deep Time” study emerge from the Lombrives Cave after 40 days underground in Ussat les Bains, France, Saturday. Renata Brito/Associated Press

Although she wished she could have stayed in the cave a few days longer, she said she was happy to feel the wind blowing on her face again and hear the birds sing in the trees of the French Pyrénées. And she doesn’t plan to open her smartphone for a few more days, hoping to avoid a “too brutal” return to real life.

For 40 days and 40 nights, the group lived in and explored the cave as part of the “Deep Time” project. There was no sunlight inside, the temperature was 50 F and the relative humidity stood at 100 percent. The cave dwellers had no contact with the outside world, no updates on the pandemic nor any communications with friends or family.

Scientists at the Human Adaption Institute leading the $1.5 million “Deep Time” project say the experiment will help them better understand how people adapt to drastic changes in living conditions and environments.

As expected, those in the cave lost their sense of time.

“And here we are! We just left after 40 days … For us it was a real surprise,” said project director Christian Clot, adding for most participants, “in our heads, we had walked into the cave 30 days ago.”

At least one team member estimated the time underground at 23 days.

Johan Francois, 37, a math teacher and sailing instructor, ran 10-kilometer circles in the cave to stay fit. He sometimes had “visceral urges” to leave.

With no daily obligations and no children around, the challenge was “to profit from the present moment without ever thinking about what will happen in one hour, in two hours,” he said.

In partnership with labs in France and Switzerland, scientists monitored the 15 subjects’ sleep patterns, social interactions and behavioral reactions via sensors. One sensor was a tiny thermometer inside a capsule that participants swallowed like a pill. It measured body temperatures and transmitted data to a computer until it was expelled naturally.

The team members followed their biological clocks to know when to wake up, go to sleep and eat. They counted their days not in hours but in sleep cycles.

On Friday, scientists monitoring the participants entered the cave to let the research subjects know they would be coming out soon.

“It’s really interesting to observe how this group synchronizes themselves,” Clot said earlier in a recording from inside the cave. Working together on projects and organizing tasks without being able to set a time to meet was especially challenging, he said.

Although the participants looked visibly tired Saturday, two-thirds expressed a desire to remain underground a bit longer in order to finish group projects started during the expedition, Benoit Mauvieux, a chronobiologist involved in the research, told the Associated Press.

“Our future as humans on this planet will evolve,” Clot said after emerging. “We must learn to better understand how our brains are capable of finding new solutions, whatever the situation.”

Follow-up study in nine months?

Follow-up study in nine months?

Imagine being trapped underground for 40 days with a bunch of French people.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/woman-swallowed-python-she-checked-100000564.html[/URL]

:eek:

A woman in Indonesia was swallowed whole by a python as she checked on her cornfields last week. According to [[I]The Washington Post]('https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/06/16/a-woman-went-to-check-her-corn-and-was-swallowed-by-a-python/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.21edcdef21e7'), citing the [Jakarta Post]('http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2018/06/16/8-meter-python-slain-after-swallowing-woman-in-southeast-sulawesi.html'), the woman's name was Wa Tiba and lived on Muna Island off the coast of Sulawesi. She left her home Thursday night to visit her cornfield about a half mile from her home.

When Wa didn't return, her sister went out to find her and found Wa's footprints, flashlight, slippers, and machete. On Friday, 100 villagers from Persiapan Lawela searched the area and found a 23 foot-long snake with a very swollen belly. The villagers killed the snake, cut it open, and found Wa inside intact.[/I]

Interesting, I'm sure this is great news for some, but would not have been good news for me. I'm one of those nerds that do really well on standardized tests. I could probably take a standardized test on Sanskrit cold and get a better than average score.

These standardized tests are BIG business so I'm sure the folks at the College Board (SAT, GRE and AP tests) and their colleagues at ACT are chitting bullets!!!

[HEADING=2]Amid pandemic, more Maine universities move away from SAT and ACT[/HEADING]
[pressherald.com/2021/04/25/amid-pandemic-more-maine-universities-move-away-from-sat-and-act/]('https://www.pressherald.com/2021/04/25/amid-pandemic-more-maine-universities-move-away-from-sat-and-act/')

By Rachel Ohm April 25, 2021

Throughout high school, Nicholas Miles built what he considered to be an impressive resume. He was the student body president for three years and served as president of the band. He was involved in several clubs and an effort to eliminate his school’s Native American mascot. He had a 3.8 grade point average.
When it came time to take the SAT, though, Miles was disappointed when his score came back lower than he was hoping for. As an aspiring pre-dental student, he worried it would hurt his chances in college admissions. “I don’t think an SAT score did any justice for me, and I think a school should want me for me and what I can bring to them other than just being able to memorize standardized testing,” said Miles, 19.

The University of New England freshman is among the first classes at the school to be admitted under a test-optional policy the university has since extended to become test-blind, meaning tests won’t be considered in admissions even if students want to submit them.

Dropping requirements for the SAT and ACT is a growing trend nationally that has been accelerated by the pandemic. About 1,700 four-year bachelor-degree-granting institutions announced test-optional or test-blind admissions policies for fall 2021, compared to about 1,100 that had such policies in place prior to the pandemic, according to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, a national testing reform organization. There are about 2,330 accredited four-year schools. About 1,400 have said they won’t require testing for fall 2022 admissions and more could follow.

“The movement was growing before the pandemic, but the pandemic forced schools to look more quickly at their admissions hurdles and take action they might not have taken for several years down the road,” said Bob Schaeffer, executive director of the Arlington, Massachusetts-based center.

Prior to the pandemic some schools were making the decision to move to test-optional policies due to competition as well as concern that testing presents barriers to students who don’t perform well on standardized exams or who lack access to the preparation and fees associated with them.

Several colleges in Maine, including Bowdoin and Bates, which were among the first in the nation to adopt test-optional policies in 1969 and 1984, respectively, have been test-optional for years. “There were already lots of positive examples out there, so when the pandemic shut down testing in many parts of the country, it was relatively easy for schools to say, ‘We’ll just follow those others that have gone test-optional,'” Schaeffer said.

[]('')
A woman walks across the Biddeford campus of the University of New England on Friday. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

At Colby College in Waterville, Vice President of Enrollment and Communications Matt Proto said the college’s move to test-optional in 2018 has played a role in growing applications, which hit a record-high of 15,857 this year. More important, though, Proto said test-optional has encouraged students who might otherwise not have applied to do so.

“We want to attract artists. We want to attract innovators,” said Proto, who also serves as dean of admissions and financial aid. “We want to attract people who really see the world in different ways who may not perform well on tests but can add to that classroom environment because of the way they see the world.”

In the University of Maine System, the flagship Orono campus announced a new test-optional policy in March 2020 in response to the challenges the pandemic posed for students trying to take the SAT or ACT. All seven undergraduate institutions are now test-optional and will stay that way post-pandemic. Applications across the UMaine System are flat this year, with 29,211 received to date.

Husson University in Bangor also adopted a new test-optional policy for the 2021 application cycle.
“We do find sometimes the testing with the SAT and ACT can be a barrier to entry for students, so waiving those did take away that barrier,” said Melissa Rosenberg, director of admissions at Husson. She said that’s especially true for students of lower socioeconomic status, who may not be able to afford to take the test or to take it more than once, or first-generation students who don’t have the same support from parents as they navigate the admissions process.

Next year Husson will be test-optional for its business, communications, legal studies and humanities programs but will resume the requirement for standardized tests in health programs, such as physical therapy, pharmacy and nursing. Those programs are capped and the tests provide one more tool for evaluating applicants. They also serve as a good predictor of how a student might perform on a licensure exam, Rosenberg said.

When UNE decided to pilot a test-blind policy last year, it was only the fourth institution in the country to do so, said Vice President of University Admissions Scott Steinberg. There are now close to 70.

Over the last year Steinberg watched his own daughter, a high school senior, and her friends experience the cancellation of test dates. As they looked at test-optional institutions, they wondered whether they would be penalized for not submitting test scores. “We thought about that at UNE and we decided the clearest, most convincing signal we could send to students and parents and guidance counselors would be to completely take the tests off the table, and that’s what test-blind does,” Steinberg said.

The policy follows an earlier move by UNE two years ago to go test-optional for the fall of 2019 admissions cycle. The university received a record number of applications – around 5,500 – as about 25 percent of applicants chose not to submit test scores. It also admitted one of its largest freshman classes, which included a 25 percent increase in the number of students of color. “That follows the national data, which show test-optional policies often appeal to students of color and that certainly applied in our case,” Steinberg said.

Advocates say standardized tests can help applicants stand out in a crowded field of students who may have similar grades and other qualifications.

The College Board, which administers the SAT, said in a statement that during the pandemic it continued to see demand from students for the exam. The board also offers financial assistance and help with test preparation through a partnership with Khan Academy and by offering test fee waivers.

“When used in context, the SAT helps colleges enroll a more diverse group of students,” the statement said. “In 2020, hundreds of thousands of underrepresented students had SAT scores that would strengthen their college applications. Students should have the choice to distinguish themselves by submitting scores as part of their application.”

[]('')
Ryan Sears, a sophomore at the University of New England studying history and secondary education, supports the Biddeford school’s test-optional policy, saying “it’s good for students to de-stress about the whole college application process.” Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

The ACT said testing offers financial advantages as tests often magnify and maximize scholarship possibilities. The data collected by the testing agencies can also be used by universities to inform decisions on recruitment, course placement, retention and graduation. The ACT recently engaged a market research firm to study the impact of COVID-19 on the testing landscape.

“This research confirmed that the pandemic swung the pendulum towards test optional policies,” the ACT said in a statement. “It may never swing all the way back, but it’s clear that schools want students to have a choice in the matter. Therefore, test blind is unlikely to take root.”

At UNE, Steinberg said that while test-blind was originally announced as a pilot, it is likely it will continue beyond 2022. “I think you’re going to see this as a growing trend,” he said.

Ryan Sears, a sophomore at UNE, supports the policy and said it would help alleviate some of the stress and pressure on students during the admissions process.

“I do really like having a school that is test-optional,” Sears said. “I think it’s good for students to destress about the whole college application process but also to focus more on being good at sports, grades, overall activities and jobs, which I think schools should be looking at.”