Yale University will again require students to submit standardized test scores when they apply for admission, school officials said Thursday. The change comes after officials found that the scores were the single best predictor of students’ academic performance and that not considering them could be a disadvantage for those who have already faced daunting challenges.
The decision — which includes greater flexibility for applicants by allowing more types of tests — is likely to be closely watched not only by students aspiring to highly selective colleges and agonizing over test scores and other metrics, but also by other universities evaluating their own policies in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The change will go into effect for first-year and transfer applicants for fall 2025 admission.
The switch comes after another Ivy League institution, Dartmouth College, announced earlier this month that it would require SAT and ACT scores again.
For generations, tests such as the SAT have been a mandatory rite of passage for ambitious students, spawning a whole industry of test-prep classes, books and tutors.
Before the pandemic, there had been growing concern that the standardized tests at best reflected inequities in society, and at worse amplified them, said David Hawkins, chief education and policy officer for the National Association for College Admission Counseling, and a movement toward test-optional policies. With the pandemic, many colleges dropped requirements that applicants submit standardized test scores “because the infrastructure for testing evaporated overnight,” he said.
With debate over the value of those tests — including criticism that they provided another barrier to disadvantaged students — many schools continued their test-optional policies even as the public health crisis eased.
The test-optional movement meant even students applying to ultracompetitive schools could skip the exams altogether, or hold back their scores if they thought they would hurt their chance at admission. (It was easy to see how their own scores tracked with current students, with a simple online search.)
At many schools, the number of applicants rose dramatically after the test requirements were dropped.
Now schools across the country are trying to figure out what to do next.
Those test-optional years provided a chance for schools to examine the impact of the change, and many have not announced final decisions about what their policies will be.
A few have: The University of California system in 2020 instituted a test-free policy — eliminating any consideration of tests for admissions. MIT reinstated test requirements in 2022. The University of Tennessee System now requires scores from first-year applicants.
And on Wednesday, the University of Michigan announced its undergraduate admissions would be test-optional for future terms.
The College Board, which administers the SAT, reported in September that more than 1.9 million high school students who graduated last spring had taken the exam, an increase from 1.7 million in 2022.
“The vast majority of the college-admissions world is going to remain test-optional,” said Harry Feder, the executive director of FairTest, which opposes the SAT and ACT — by their count, more than 80 percent of four-year colleges would not require those scores for admission in the fall of 2025. He said most schools are finding they’re getting more applicants and more diversity when they don’t require the scores.
Feder said he preferred Yale’s more flexible policy to Dartmouth’s, because requiring the SAT or ACT will shut out more socioeconomically disadvantaged students who simply won’t apply.
Every institution needs to make its own decision, Hawkins said. “I don’t think there’s a clear trend line yet,” he said. “I think we are still very much in a churn phase.”
“The pandemic was an unanticipated, precipitous change to our work,” said Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid at Yale. He said Yale had already begun studying the value of standardized testing in their process even before the pandemic. “And then obviously, some of our questions changed as we went through cycles of test-optional admissions. We’ve now been through four.”
In analyses of the applicant pool, the admitted class, the freshman class, and comparisons of students who were admitted with and without test scores, Yale found that the scores accurately predicted academic performance. Students with higher scores were more likely to have higher grades at Yale.
Test scores also predicted students’ grades at Yale better than anything else on their applications, school officials said.
That finding was consistent with a recent study of a dozen highly selective colleges from Opportunity Insights, in which researchers found that even among otherwise similar students with the same grades in high school, SAT and ACT scores “have substantial predictive power for academic success in college.”
“The first question you have when you open up an application file, is ‘Can this student do the work at Yale?’” Quinlan said. Tests, along with transcripts, are a huge part of answering that question, he said.
In recent years, Yale has enrolled more than 1,000 students who did not submit scores. But analyses found that applicants who withheld scores were less likely to be admitted. That was especially true for those from lower-income families and high schools with fewer college-preparatory courses.
“The entire admissions office staff is keenly aware of the research on the correlations between standardized test scores and household income as well as the persistent gaps by race,” Quinlan said in a statement to the Yale community. “Our experience, however, is that including test scores as one component of a thoughtful whole-person review process can help increase the diversity of the student body rather than decrease it.”
The findings mirror those of Dartmouth. Sian Leah Beilock, Dartmouth’s president, said earlier this month that the school concluded the numbers could be particularly helpful in identifying students with fewer advantages who otherwise might be overlooked.
Yale will also allow more types of tests than in the past, adding Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate scores as options along with the SAT and ACT.
The “test-flexible” policy was influenced by another reality: With some schools not considering scores, Quinlan said, “There are plenty of students in states, particularly in California, where taking the SAT or ACT is not going to be part of their college plans.”
Yale did gain more applicants since it made the scores optional, from 35,000 to 57,000 — 66 percent more in four years. Those pools included high numbers of applications from students whose parents didn’t go to college, from lower-income neighborhoods and from underrepresented minority groups.
But when applications without scores were reviewed, admissions officers put greater weight on other aspects of the application — in ways that inadvertently hurt such students.
While some students can supplement their applications with extras such as rigorous classes, personalized recommendations and impressive extracurricular activities, others at schools with lesser resources are left with fewer indicators of their performance and potential, Quinlan explained.
Before the pandemic, requiring testing hadn’t hurt Yale’s ability to increase diversity: From 2013 and 2019, according to the school, the number of underrepresented minority students increased 52 percent, the number of students who were first in their families to attend college increased 65 percent, and the number of freshmen eligible for a Pell Grant increased 95 percent.
The university created podcasts to help explain and clarify the decisions. Mark Dunn, senior associate director of admissions for outreach and recruitment at Yale, said officials understand the holistic admissions process is opaque and they want applicants to get information directly from the school rather than paying a self-proclaimed ‘expert’ or searching corners of the internet.
“The amount of energy people spend fretting about test scores, asking us really specific questions about elements of testing policies and even just trying to improve their scores is, we think, disproportionate to their actual role in our process,” Dunn said.
