The conventional SEA model considers only the resonant part of the structural response to an acoustic excitation. Therefore, this study investigates non-resonant responses of isotropic and orthotropic plates to acoustically induced vibrations in a reverberation chamber. A modified SEA model is introduced to predict the non-resonant plate response. The estimated non-resonant and resonant responses are then compared with those obtained experimentally, and good agreement is observed for isotropic and orthotropic plates. For an isotropic plate with a small dissipation loss factor, when the non-resonant part is ignored, the estimated response can lead to significant errors at frequencies near and above the critical frequency, while large errors may occur at frequencies below the critical frequency for an orthotropic plate with a high dissipation loss factor. The experimental study indicates that the non-resonant response component should be included in the estimated responses to enhance predictive accuracy.