Do college and university admissions still put a lot of stock into a student's SAT score?

Private universities lay less emphasis on SAT score compared to public schools. There are only a handful of universities/colleges which are test-optional. Most schools consider SAT score as an important factor for admission as it assess a students' analytical and critical reading abilities. College like UC Berkeley, UCLA, and USC who receive 50K+ applications use SAT as a factor to narrow down to those applicants whose scores are in the range of the respective colleges.

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