Dartmouth, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Yale will again require ACT® Test/SAT® Test scores for admission. Many other schools are considering similar test reinstatement plans.
Test-Optional During Covid
Over 1,800 colleges and universities became test-optional in response to Covid. Many continue to offer admissions without requiring test scores, in part to boost the number of applications received and the fees received. Other schools want to make college feel more accessible, especially for those who "don't test well."
In October 2023, admission directors discussed test-optional applications in a podcast interview. According to Yale's Dean of Admissions, "It turns out actually that the SAT® Test or the ACT® Test is the single best predictor of a student's academic performance." Christina Paxson, president of Brown University, wrote, “Standardized test scores are a much better predictor of academic success than high school grades.”
Return to Required Testing
The New York Times recently shared data collected from researchers at Brown and Dartmouth which show that test scores are strong predictors of college performance and that scores and college grades are strongly related.
Here’s why: high school GPAs are not consistent across states or even districts. An A at one high school might be a B or C at another. Some high schools use 4-point scales; some use 5-point scales. Honors and AP courses are weighted at some schools, but not at others. Grade inflation has entered many high schools, primarily due to parental pressure. The Emory Admissions Director shared, "We're not as trusting, frankly, of GPA these days. Grades are definitely inflated and not as connected to true class performance as they used to be."
MIT's internal research found that requiring test scores helped improve the diversity of their enrolled students and also improved the likelihood that those enrolled students would pass the required freshman courses at MIT. No one benefits when students drop out of college because they're not college-ready.
Interested in more reasons Why the ACT® Test & SAT® Test Matter at Test-Optional Colleges?
