January 1, 1970

Test-Optional Admissions: What 3 Years of Real Data Actually Shows

The experiment lasted exactly four years at most schools. When testing centers closed in March 2020, colleges dropped SAT and ACT requirements overnight, framing it as a temporary emergency measure. For many, it became something far more permanent. Now, with enough admitted cohorts to actually track through graduation, the data has caught up with the policy. The findings are messier than either side predicted — and more instructive because of it.

The Fastest Policy Shift in Admissions History

In early 2020, roughly 1,075 four-year colleges didn't require standardized test scores. By Fall 2020, that number had surged past 1,700. Applications surged with it. Diversity numbers at many institutions ticked upward. It looked, briefly, like the critics of standardized testing had gotten everything they'd argued for over three decades.

The speed of the shift was genuinely without precedent. Within a single admissions cycle, the majority of American colleges had done something the testing reform movement had been pushing toward for a generation. Most schools liked what they saw: more applicants, more first-generation college students in the pool, and a break from the anxiety machine that SAT prep culture had become for high school juniors.

But the picture got complicated once researchers started separating which effects were durable from which were just the noise of a disrupted cycle. And a few years in, some of the loudest evidence came not from advocates or critics, but from the schools' own internal data.

What the Data Shows About Diversity

The strongest evidence for test-optional policies comes from moderately selective institutions. Research found that colleges going test-optional enrolled 10 to 12 percent more students from underrepresented racial backgrounds compared to peers who kept score requirements. That's a real and meaningful number — not a rounding error.

But the gains weren't uniform, and that matters. A 2025 study published in the American Sociological Review, by UC Davis researcher Greta Hsu and University of Chicago's Amanda Sharkey, found that some institutions saw substantial diversity increases while others saw almost nothing. The difference, their analysis showed, came down to what else the school changed alongside its testing policy. Removing the score requirement without also reforming recruitment, financial aid structures, and student support produced only marginal shifts.

Chris Bennett's analysis of roughly 100 private colleges put it directly: test-optional policies led to "modest but meaningful improvement in diversity." That's an honest description of where the evidence lands — real progress, but not the transformation some advocates had promised. The policy alone wasn't enough.

There's also a nuanced outcome worth flagging: research has found that students admitted without test scores achieved freshman grades nearly a full grade point below matched peers who submitted scores, and were 55% more likely to end up on academic probation. That doesn't indict the policy — it may point to a gap in academic support infrastructure — but it's a number schools need to reckon with honestly.

The Counterintuitive Case for Bringing Tests Back

While most of higher education was solidifying test-optional as the new normal, elite universities were running their own internal analyses. MIT reversed course in 2022. Dartmouth and Yale followed in February 2024. Brown joined in March. Princeton announced its return, and with that, every Ivy League school except Columbia ended up back at required testing for fall 2025 applicants.

Their stated rationale was counterintuitive — and worth actually understanding. Dartmouth's economists, who presented their findings directly to the college's president and admissions dean, found that high-achieving, low-income students were choosing not to submit strong scores because they simply didn't know that submitting would help them. Test-optional policies created ambiguity. Ambiguity costs people who don't have a college counselor in their corner.

Yale's dean of undergraduate admissions, Jeremiah Quinlan, was blunt about what Yale's data showed:

"Students with higher scores have been more likely to have higher Yale GPAs. Test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student's performance."

Brown's internal review of its Classes of 2025 and 2026 found academic outcomes correlated strongly with test scores. These schools weren't making ideological arguments. They were responding to institutional data — and the data pushed in one direction.

Dartmouth's admissions head Lee Coffin framed the reversal this way: the 2020 switch had always been "a temporary response to external events," not a philosophical change. Fair enough. But by 2024, the philosophy had also caught up.

The Chetty Research Cuts Both Ways

The Ivy League reversal drew partly on Raj Chetty's Opportunity Insights research, which published a striking finding in October 2023: children of the wealthiest 1% of families are 13 times more likely to score a 1300 or above on the SAT than students from lower-income households. On its face, this looks like a devastating argument against requiring tests.

But Chetty's broader work revealed something equally troubling about the alternative. When test scores are de-emphasized, admissions weight shifts toward legacy preference, non-academic credentials, and athletic recruitment. These advantages almost exclusively benefit wealthy applicants — the very students the reform was meant to displace. As Opportunity Insights economist David Deming put it, removing standardized tests would merely "make it invisible" rather than fix the underlying inequality.

The raw participation data from the College Board makes the gap concrete: only 25% of students from the bottom income quintile take the SAT or ACT at all, compared to more than 80% of students from the top quintile. Among those who do test, just 2.5% of low-income students score 1,300 or above, versus roughly 17% from high-income families.

That's a severe gap. But eliminating the test doesn't eliminate the conditions that create it. The score gap is downstream of vocabulary gaps, school funding gaps, tutoring access gaps — differences that begin before kindergarten, according to Deming's research. The test is measuring a real inequality that already exists.

The Score Submission Paradox

Here's something the headlines mostly missed: even as more colleges went test-optional, students kept submitting scores at increasing rates. Test score submission among Common App applicants jumped 11% between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 admissions cycles — the first significant increase since before the pandemic.

Students who understand how admissions actually works submit scores. At selective institutions, a high score remains a clear positive signal regardless of official policy. Jayson Weingarten, a senior consultant at Ivy Coach, said it plainly: "Don't fall for the lie that test-optional means test-unimportant." At schools like Georgetown or Vanderbilt, a 1540 SAT still strengthens an application — officially optional or not.

The students who benefited most from test-optional policies were largely middle-income applicants with strong grades but below-median test scores. Not necessarily the low-income first-generation students the policy was theoretically designed to serve. That gap between intent and outcome isn't a reason to abandon test-optional wholesale, but it's a question advocates haven't fully answered.

Where Things Actually Stand in 2025

As of the 2025-26 cycle, American higher education has sorted into three distinct tiers:

Tier	Examples	Policy
Returned to required	MIT, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton	SAT/ACT scores required for all
Still test-optional	Harvard (policy under review for 2026), most liberal arts colleges	Scores optional, still considered
Test-blind	University of California system, Hampshire College	Scores not considered even if submitted

Slightly more than 2,000 four-year colleges remain test-optional or test-blind as of 2024, meaning roughly 80% of U.S. institutions are not requiring scores. The elite reversals are real — but they involve a handful of schools that enroll a small fraction of American undergraduates.

The real story isn't the Ivy League. It's the thousands of regional universities, state schools, and liberal arts colleges that went test-optional, largely stayed there, and found it produced healthier, larger applicant pools without measurable drops in graduation rates.

The University of California system (which collectively enrolls around 300,000 students) made the most decisive call by going fully test-blind. Their internal research showed high school GPA was a stronger predictor of freshman-year performance than SAT scores for their specific population. Yale reached the opposite conclusion with its data. Both institutions drew from real evidence. They just serve different students with different institutional missions — and that difference matters more than most coverage acknowledges.

What Students Should Do Right Now

Whether your target school is test-optional or requires scores, the strategic calculus is clearer than it looks. Use this framework:

Score at or above the school's 75th percentile? Submit it. At any test-optional school, a strong score is an unambiguous positive. There's no upside to hiding a genuine strength.
Score below the school's 50th percentile? Seriously consider withholding it. Redirect energy toward essays, demonstrated interest, and strong teacher recommendations.
Targeting any Ivy League school? MIT, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, and Princeton require scores outright for 2025-26. Harvard plans to revisit its policy in 2026. Treat all Ivy applications as effectively test-required.
Applying to UC campuses? Scores genuinely don't factor in and won't be reviewed. Don't stress the SAT for these apps.
Somewhere in the middle? Look up the median submitted scores in each school's published Common Data Set. A score within 30–40 points of the median is usually worth submitting; much further below that, probably not.

Students who start building their college list in spring of junior year, looking up each school's actual published score ranges and policy language, can use test-optional rules as a real advantage. Those who wait until December of senior year often discover they made decisions earlier (taking or skipping the SAT) that closed options they didn't know were on the table.

My honest read of the evidence: if you have a strong score relative to your target school, submit it. Every major research finding points in this direction. The policy is called "test-optional," not "test-discouraged."

Bottom Line

Test-optional increased diversity modestly, not dramatically. Schools that saw the biggest gains paired the policy with real changes to recruitment and financial aid. The policy alone didn't move mountains.
Elite schools reversed for reasons worth taking seriously. The evidence that test-optional policies sometimes discouraged high-achieving low-income applicants from submitting scores is real and based on internal institutional data — not ideological opposition.
The inequality predates the test. Score gaps between wealthy and low-income students are severe and will persist regardless of admissions policy. Fixing that requires addressing what happens long before anyone sits for the SAT.
Know your school's actual policy, not just its label. "Test-optional" means different things at different institutions. Look up median submitted scores, read recent class profiles, and decide based on your specific numbers.
If you have a strong score, submit it. That's the most consistent finding across three years of post-pandemic admissions data.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do test-optional policies actually help low-income students get into college?

The evidence is genuinely mixed. At moderately selective institutions, research shows 10 to 12 percent more students from underrepresented backgrounds enrolled under test-optional policies. But at highly selective schools, Dartmouth's own economists found the policy sometimes backfired — high-achieving low-income applicants frequently didn't submit strong scores because they weren't sure whether submitting would help or hurt their chances. The policy's impact correlates heavily with whether schools also changed recruitment and financial aid practices alongside it.

Is it a myth that "test-optional" means test scores don't matter?

Largely yes, at selective schools. Internal data from Yale consistently shows high scores improve admissions chances even where officially optional. Yale's dean of admissions called test scores "the single greatest predictor of a student's performance." If you have a score above a school's published median, withholding it is almost always the wrong strategic call. The confusion around this point has likely hurt more applicants than it's helped.

Why did elite schools reverse their test-optional policies?

The primary driver was internal research showing scores were strong predictors of college success, and that test-optional created a harmful information problem. High-achieving applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds often didn't submit scores that would have helped them, simply because the policy created uncertainty about how scores were used. MIT's and Dartmouth's economists found the policy was producing less complete applicant profiles without meaningfully improving diversity at their specific institutions.

Will more colleges return to requiring tests?

At the elite end, the trend is clearly back toward required testing. Every Ivy League school except Columbia has returned to or announced required testing for 2025-26 applicants. Among the broader universe of 2,000-plus test-optional institutions, a wholesale reversal looks unlikely. Most schools found that going test-optional grew their applicant pool without hurting academic outcomes — the pressure to reverse simply isn't there for them.

What if I'm applying to a test-optional school but didn't take the SAT or ACT?

If you're in 11th grade or early 12th, it's worth sitting for the test at least once. A single SAT costs $60, and if the score comes back strong relative to your target school's range, submitting it can meaningfully strengthen your application. If you're past that window, put energy into essays, recommendations, and extracurricular narrative. Tests matter, but they were never the only factor — and a compelling application can absolutely overcome their absence at most schools.

How is test-blind different from test-optional?

Test-blind means the institution will not review SAT or ACT scores even if you submit them. Test-optional means you choose whether to include scores, and they're considered if you do. The University of California system (all nine undergraduate campuses) is test-blind; most schools that shifted during the pandemic are test-optional. The distinction matters practically: there's no strategic reason to submit scores to a test-blind school, and doing so won't help you.