My DD did not take the SSATs this past year and ended up with 10 admissions, a number of merit scholarships, and 2 waitlists and no rejections. That said, she applied to none of the “tippy top” schools. Many of the schools indicated they were using covid as an opportunity to explore test optional, which sounded like something they had been thinking about it beforehand anyway. Several said that this would be an experiment for several years, some said “going forward” (as if it were permanent) and some made it clear that this was a covid-only thing.
I think it’s safe to say that there will be a mix of requirements next year, and none of us really know how it will shake out.
If you want complete freedom over which schools to apply to, I would plan to take the SSATs. However, if your child isn’t a great test-taker, or the SSAT represents a lot of stress coming out of an already stressful year or two, then I would say: you can absolutely find great schools that will not require the test. And those schools that technically do require the SSAT, they will likely have some flexibility if you email them and explain why your kid isn’t taking the test. (Which probably should not be “oh we just didn’t want to.”)
As for the extra work like samples and such – several schools already require those things, so you’ll likely be pulling a math sample and a writing sample anyway for at least one or two schools, so it wasn’t really a burden to send those off to a few more schools. There were 2 schools where my daughter had to do a short (10 minutes?) proctored writing sample right before or after her interview since she wasn’t submitting SSATs. That was a tiny bit stressful, but it was fine.
I’ll add that a year ago, another daughter of mine did take the SSAT, did not so great (78-80) and was still admitted to a bunch of the “tippy tops,” like Andover, Deerfield, etc. which tells me that SSATs really are not the be-all-end-all even for them. It will be interesting to see if they feel more or less convinced of that fact after seeing this years’ crop of admitted students, many of whom did not take the SSAT.