About-face: Why Yale, Brown, Dartmouth and Others Are Returning to Standardized Testing
Despite accusations that they advantage only resourced and privileged students, the SAT and ACT had been the gold standard requirement for college admissions for decades. Only a global shutdown of testing centers was able to force colleges to shift to a test-optional policy. Now, colleges are returning to standardized testing and giving strong evidence to support this decision.
Scroll down to the end of this article for some resources you might find helpful, including a link to test optional schools.
When Test-Optional Reigned Supreme
Anyone in the college admissions landscape remembers it well- spring 2020- the world ground to a halt. Testing centers across the US and abroad shuttered their doors. Finding an open test center became difficult if not impossible for at least a year. And so colleges had to adjust their approach to testing requirements for the upcoming admissions cycle. The majority of colleges and universities pivoted to a test-optional policy. And for the past 4 years, many have remained so.
The About-Face
But in recent months, a slew of colleges and universities have joined the ranks of MIT, Georgetown, Purdue, University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, University of Tennessee and the Florida publics: testing is no longer optional, it’s required.
Among those who have returned to requiring test scores as of the publication of this post are Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, and University of Texas at Austin.
The Case for Standardized Testing
So why? It’s apparent that standardized tests are wildly unpopular with high school students and families, adding an extra task to the college application process that costs time and money.
The research, spearheaded by the colleges themselves and unaffiliated with the makers of the tests (CollegeBoard and ACT Inc.) supports the value of standardized test scores, especially for the under-resourced students.
1. Test scores as predictors of college performance
The first benefit from standardized testing only could become statistically significant with the data that rolled out over the course of a 4-year test-optional policy. Both Dartmouth and Yale have concluded that students who submitted test scores have demonstrated themselves to be undoubtedly more prepared for the rigor of their curriculum. The correlation between test scores and college GPA are undeniable. In the case of Yale, test scores were the number one determining factor of college GPA.
We probably shouldn’t be surprised by this given the trend I’m about to highlight: grade inflation at the high school level
2. Test scores as antidote to grade inflation
Courses and grades in high school are usually touted as the number one factor to determine college readiness, but courses and grades are increasingly leaving colleges with a muddied picture. This is because high school students are growing more and more expectant of getting A’s in their high school coursework, whether or not they show true mastery of the material.
I was a high school teacher. I saw this firsthand. Especially during COVID, we were understandably asked by the administration to be more lenient with grades and the material covered. We were expected to cover 50-75% of the material we covered in a typical year. I understand the reason behind the policy –teenage mental health is important and to expect high schoolers to do the same amount of work in online classes during a global health pandemic was not a good look. Now we are reaping the results of giving students A’s for a class that only covered 50% of the material that an A-student the year before would have covered.
Grade Inflation in U.S. High Schools, 1966-2022, “American Freshman Survey” from the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. The 2022 figure? Literally off the chart at 80.6%!
3. Test scores in the context of a student’s environment
The final important piece of this puzzle was uncovered as students at Dartmouth and Yale who had applied test-optional later revealed their test scores that they withheld. Within the context of their high school and their community, many students who had withheld their test scores would have actually benefitted from submitting them.
This is perhaps the most important consideration when you are trying to decide on whether or not to submit test scores to a test-optional college in the upcoming application cycle. In the context of your school, are your SAT or ACT scores considered low, average, or high? Even if they aren’t within the middle-50th-percentile of the college to which you are applying, you should submit your test scores if they are contextually significant (aka higher than the average at your school or in your community).
Final thoughts
Before the SAT was implemented almost a century ago in 1926, each individual college may have implemented its own unique standardized test to ensure applicants were ready for college-level coursework. This meant that students often had to take a separate test for each school they applied to. As much as we tend to hate on the SAT and ACT, there are benefits to only taking one test a few times and being able to submit that score to all colleges across the board.
Standardized testing is not perfect, and most students wouldn’t take a test just for the fun of it. But well meaning college admissions administrators rightfully want to make sure high school applicants are ready for the coursework they will encounter at their institutions.
If the thought of sitting for an SAT or ACT evokes undue stress or anxiety, there are so many wonderful institutions who understand this and would love to have you on their campus without test scores. Get in where you fit in!
Test Optional for Fall 2024 Applicants:
Elon
Harvard
Princeton
University of Virginia
Vanderbilt
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest
Washington & Lee
William & Mary
See a full list of test optional colleges and universities
Official College Statements on New Test-Required Policies for Fall 2024 Applicants:
Yale* - Yale’s “test-flexible” policy allows students to submit SAT, ACT, AP or IB exam scores
We are still waiting on the University of North Carolina System (UNC, NC State, Duke, etc.), University of South Carolina System, Clemson, and others.
