Beauty school is an opportunity to expand your horizons. It is also your chance to enter into a rewarding career field, where you are responsible for making clients look and feel fabulous. Your first step to becoming a professional in this field is to select a school. After that, you must adhere to the school’s prerequisites, which may include a test.

General Information
In order to be accepted into many beauty schools, you have to take an entrance exam to be considered. This is similar to many other colleges’ requirements; however, the test varies and in some instances, the test is only needed to be taken by certain individuals. For example, students who have a GED or have not completed high school may be required to an entrance exam, while those who possess a high school diploma will be able to enter into certain beauty schools without a test.

Some schools, such as ATI College and Sutter Beauty College require all students to take an exam. Sometimes, the test requirements are to pass the Ability-to-Benefit (ATB) tests or Tests of Adult Basic Education (TABE). These tests evaluate your knowledge on basic subjects like math and reading comprehension. Unlike other subjects, cosmetology schools do not require you to take the SATs—a standardized college test that is hosted by the College Board.

Areas Covered on the Tests
While every beauty school have a different test, since a standard test is not issued by any governing group, each test varies greatly. One aspect of each test remains static; this is the fact that each tests covers general education subjects, including math, reading and writing. A sample test question from the ATB test might be to determine what a word means based on the passage that is provided. A math question tends to cover basic math operations and simple algebra questions.

Reason for Testing
The testing helps a school to determine if a prospective student is a fit for the school. A person who does not exhibit basic literacy and comprehension skills can find beauty school to be challenging and overwhelming. This hurts both the student and the staff in the long run, since both parties are putting time and effort into something that neither will reap a benefit from.