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At least 122 colleges have already returned to requiring test scores or said they will return to doing so in the 2025-2026 admissions cycle. A few of the most notable to do so: MIT, Caltech (which jumped all the way from test-blind directly to test-required), Harvard (which ended its moratorium on testing early), Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, University of Georgia, University of Texas at Austin, etc. In just the last two weeks, Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon have made similar announcements.
While the above is news to some people, it feels like old news to those “in the know.” As I wrote for the Chicago Tribune in March, “At elite colleges, the change back from test-optional to test-required is, for the vast majority of students, a change in name only.” (And those of you who follow this blog knew the latter as early as March of 2022 with an update in April of 2023.)
This will be a relatively long post about all the new developments you need to know about testing and college admissions:
- Update on test-optional admissions.
- Update on the use of AP exam scores for admissions.
- Update on test-blind colleges.
- Why colleges are using test scores again (some more than ever before).
The Test-Optional Holdouts: Allegedly Optional, Functionally Required
Even if a top college does not officially require test scores, functionally they more-or-less do. Consider Duke’s admissions page:
You are told to buy a study guide and to begin taking practice SAT and ACT tests. Then recommended to take the official SAT or ACT. And… then told that they are test-optional. To be honest, good on them that they actually give good advice on practicing for and taking the real exams. We then just need to understand what test-optional admissions actually means: it means that a test score is optional to apply — not necessarily to actually get in.
Or consider Amherst. Although Amherst’s standardized testing page is not nearly as explicit/honest as Duke’s, you can still uncover the truth if you dig a bit.
Here are some data that Amherst published about its most recent freshman class:
From the above, maybe people can see that although only 44% of applicants submitted an SAT/ACT score, those who submitted an SAT/ACT were 66% of the admitted students. So, something is going on there.
Indeed, much more than most people think.
When you crunch the numbers, you come out with very different admission rates for those who submit and do not submit test scores. How different?
Admit rate for students who submit test scores: 13.5%.
Admit rate for students who do not submit test scores: 5.5%.
Put another way, students who submit test scores have a 2.5 times higher admit rate! (Now, it’s not just submitting any score that boosts a student’s chances; these students are likely submitting good scores, but it shows that the inclusion of a good SAT/ACT score likely more than doubles a student’s chances of getting admitted.)
Typically, people are trying to gain small advantages. A 2% advantage is not much. 20%? That’s enormous. But to potentially 2.5x your chances? That’s… well, that doesn’t sound very test-optional if you actually want to get in, and those few who got in without test scores very likely had a hook that allowed them to get in without scores (athletic recruitment, a child of a faculty member, a child of a donor, etc).
The Importance of AP and IB Exam Scores for College Admissions
More and more colleges are using AP exam scores not just for the purpose of awarding college course credit but to help make better admissions decisions (which we also wrote about in March).
In October of 2023, John Latting, the Dean of Admissions for Emory, went on record that his admissions office is “not as trusting, frankly, of GPA these days. Students are trying their hardest… but grades are definitely inflated and not as connected to true class performance as they used to be.”
He further explained that they would be “weighing ‘external assessment’ more heavily than GPA, with a particular focus on AP scores.”
That is a remarkable statement.
It, literally, might be the first time in the history of college admissions that a dean of admissions at a U.S. college has said that they will weigh AP exam scores more heavily than high school GPA.
The message to students: “Yes, take rigorous courses. But, an “A” in an AP class won’t impress; you better have a great AP exam score in your application that goes along with that class.”
Yale’s admissions officers said almost the same thing in their podcast, “If your transcript shows that you have been enrolled in several AP courses before senior year and your application doesn’t include any AP scores, we’re going to wonder what’s up.” In short, AP classes should be paired with (good) reported AP scores if a student wants the AP classes to help them get an advantage in admissions.
Other top schools have echoed the call for students to submit AP exam scores. According to Princeton, “if you sat for an Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) test, we recommend that you self-report all of your AP or IB scores on your application.”
In short, challenge yourself with AP or IB courses and send your exam scores.
The Test-Blind Illusion: Seeing AP and IB Scores Clearly
Although I have written about this before too, I was reminded of it when I listened to an interview with Jua Howard, Assistant Director of Admissions at UC Berkeley, on the College Admissions Process Podcast. (perhaps the best podcast for learning what an individual college is looking for in the admissions process). Howard explains that UC Berkeley does use AP and IB (and also A-Level for international applicants) scores in its admissions process.
And yet Howard calls UC Berkeley “test-free.”
It’s only “test-free” if you don’t consider AP or IB exams to be tests.
But they are tests.
Which means UC Berkeley is not test-free.
This clarity is essential for students and parents to know: if you are applying to a top test-blind/test-free college, the college will expect you to send AP or IB scores (as long as your school offers the option to take AP or IB classes).
If you know where to look (like UC Berkeley’s admission requirements — not just the UC system’s admissions requirements), you can start to see through the illusion (they list that they do use AP or IB exams to assess academic performance).
Why Are Colleges Returning to Officially or Functionally Requiring SAT, ACT, or Other Standardized Test Scores?
First, let’s look at a few statements from colleges themselves.
“SAT and ACT tests are better predictors of Harvard grades than high school grades.”
Harvard Admissions Website (2024)
“Test scores are the single largest predictor of a student’s academic performance at Yale. And this is true overall for years. And it’s true even when we control for every other available variable that we can.”
Mark Dunn, Assistant Director of Admissions at Yale, on the Yale Admissions Podcast (2024)
“Standardized test scores are a much better predictor of academic success than high school grades.”
Christina Paxson, President of Brown University, quoted by the New York Times (2024)
But what does better mean? Just how much better are test scores at predicting success (at least at top colleges) than high school grades?
In the words of Brown’s President, “much better.”
Indeed, as Dartmouth detailed, a student’s high school grades increase predicting a student’s grades at Dartmouth by 9%. Definitely better than nothing.
How about SAT or ACT scores? They improve prediction by 22%. More than 2.4 times more predictive than high school grades.
How about together? SAT/ACT scores + high school grades improve prediction by 25%. So 3% better prediction with the use of high school grades than just using SAT/ACT scores alone. So why not use just test scores? Because why wouldn’t top colleges want all the information that they can to make the best decisions? For the same reason (that colleges do want every piece of information to make better decisions), colleges want not only SAT/ACT scores but AP/IB exam scores.
In fact, before the test-optional movement, people forget that there was actually an SAT and ACT double-submitter advantage (which shows up in some of the Common Data set based on the number of enrolled students who submitted both an SAT and ACT score).
In 2013, The New York Times ran a piece about how more college applicants were submitting both SAT and ACT scores. Janet Rapelye, Dean of Admissions at Princeton at the time, said that “For [Princeton], more information is always better… If [applicants] submit both [SAT and ACT scores], that generally gives us a little more information.”
When people lament the use of test scores, keep in mind that top colleges want students who will academically succeed. They want any information that can help them best determine who will academically succeed, and test scores (as many as colleges can get their hands on) are the best predictors of that academic preparedness and success.
If a college truly does not use test scores, then I’m not sure you want to go there (unless it’s an institution for art, performance, etc). Seriously. Why would you go to a college that doesn’t prioritize academic preparedness? Really think about it. College is expensive. If it’s just for the experience, ok, but that’s a very expensive experience then. As I wrote for Nasdaq in 2022, college is a buy-and-hold-for-life investment so choose wisely.
Some test-optional colleges are at least honest that they prefer test scores.
“Auburn University is a test-preferred institution; we recommend that students take and submit official ACT and SAT scores for admissions.”
Auburn University Admissions Page (2024)
“We recommend applicants take the ACT or SAT and submit test scores if they are available, as we believe that standardized test scores provide useful information and predictive value about a student’s potential for success at Ohio State.”
Ohio State General FAQs (2024)
“Purdue University expects applicants to have SAT or ACT scores.”
Purdue Admissions Page (2024)
But to more deeply understand the importance of test scores, we have to understand what has happened to high school grades: they have become incredibly inflated and have thus incredibly declined in how well they predict success in college.
And then compare the inflation in grades to the complete lack of inflation in ACT scores (which are standardized exams and have actually helped reveal that, since Covid, academic preparedness has declined).
Hopefully it now makes sense why colleges value test scores. What else do they have to go on when nearly 86% of students going to a 4-year BA-granting university had A-averages in high school?
The Reality of Test Scores
Some truths are hard to accept. It is hard to have conversations with parents who, understandably, believe that their child is a great student but a bad test taker. Now, sometimes that actually is the case. But usually it is not. If a student has an A-average and is on honor roll, then their parents are likely to believe (again, understandably!) that they are a great student. All indications from 11 years of schooling have signaled that.
But, an A-average student on honor roll is, whether we like it or not, average (yes, some schools are harder than others, but often not as different as parents think).
And what is the average SAT and ACT score? About a 1000 on the SAT and a 20 on the ACT. And yet most parents are then shocked when their kids start with these scores, even when (from a standardized test perspective) these scores were completely expected. Because grades have been telling them that their kids are above average (most parents are not yet aware that a majority of college-bound students have A-averages), parents then believe the test scores are falsely assessing their child’s academic preparedness when, in fact, it’s much more likely that the test score is the more accurate measure.
Tough to hear and tough to tell a parent. But it’s the truth, and parents deserve to hear it.
What Should Students and Parents Do?
First, take test scores seriously. If a student is scoring lower than expected, then this likely means that the student has more knowledge and skill gaps than they were aware of. (The tests aren’t perfect — nothing is — but the data show that the test scores are, on average, more than twice as accurate as grades for measuring college academic preparedness.)
Luckily, knowledge and skill gaps can be filled and improved. But parents also need to realize that it’s not a quick process. There are over 200 topics tested on the SAT and ACT — that’s why the tests are quite accurate measures of academic preparedness. It takes a long time for most students to master all the foundational concepts of grammar, mathematics, reading, and data analysis. And yet, as the data show, these are precisely the concepts that best help students succeed in college (and best predict that they are prepared to succeed).
Even if test scores were not required or wouldn’t be used, it would still be worth it to get tutoring for these exams specifically because the tested knowledge and skills evaluated are precisely those that are most important for students to learn and master in order to succeed in college.
It is through this lens — as an opportunity to learn the most important concepts to better position oneself for future success in college and beyond — that I would hope families view test prep. These are achievement tests. Students can prepare for these exams, improve their scores, and set themselves up for greater future success by not only getting into a better college but by performing better when they get there.
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