The Pendulum Swings? Higher Education Revisits Admissions Testing Policies After COVID-19

Essential background on test-required, test-optional, and test-free policies

By Sara Haviland, Reginald Gooch, and Teresa Ober

The SAT has been a part of American higher education for nearly a century. Today, it and other admissions tests face an uncertain future as concerns increase about their possible role in perpetuating inequality.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many colleges and universities reduced admissions testing requirements, either becoming test-optional (considering test scores if submitted) or test-free (not accepting test scores at all). However, many of those policies were set to expire within 2 to 5 years. Several prominent institutions, such as MIT and the University of Georgia, returned to requiring standardized testing in 2022, followed by Dartmouth, Brown, UT Austin, Yale, and Johns Hopkins, citing the value of tests for identifying strong candidates from diverse backgrounds. Should others follow suit?

To determine the future of admissions testing, it is important to understand the goals and outcomes of these policies.

The Rise of Admissions Testing

The SAT was first administered experimentally in 1926 and soon used by Harvard for scholarship selections and eventually admissions decisions. It became the central college admissions test for the College Board and a staple of postwar admissions. The GRE followed in 1936 and the ACT in 1959, among others, as U.S. higher education sought a model that awarded elite admission based on an applicant’s talent and industry rather than relying on privilege and connection. Nicholas Lemann’s recent book, Higher Admissions: The Rise, Decline, and Return of Standardized Testing, explores this history and makes an important distinction about the meritocratic impulses of early leaders in the testing movement such as Henry Chauncey and James Bryant Conant:

It was driven by a vision of the American future, but we should be precise about what that vision was: a more democratically selected educated elite, not greatly enhanced opportunity for the majority of Americans, and not the advancement of historically marginalized people. (Lemann, 2024, pg. 16)

Over the years, this limited vision has become a sticking point. While early tests expanded opportunities beyond the prior system, concerns arose over time as the test scores were associated with race, economics, and social standing. A growing movement of schools began to reduce testing requirements, starting with Bowdoin College in 1969 and gaining momentum in the 2000s.

COVID-19 and Admissions Disruptions

The pandemic-related shutdowns began in the United States in March 2020; the Spring and Fall 2021 admissions cycles bore the brunt of the disruption. By October 2020, nearly two-thirds of colleges and universities had test-optional or test-free policies for their undergraduate admissions. A study by ETS and NAGAP (the Association of Graduate Enrollment Management) in August 2021 found only 11% of respondents worked in test-required schools at the time. Schools that went test-optional in response to the pandemic were most likely to consider these changes to be temporary, while those that went test-free were more likely to consider them permanent.

A 2022 follow up study explored graduate schools’ motivations for adopting test-optional policies. Admissions decision-makers saw these policies as a win-win, attracting a larger, more diverse pool of applicants without stepping outside of the norms and practices of peer institutions. However, our review of early studies on the effects of test-optional policies found mixed results, particularly at the undergraduate level. Large research institutions may have increased diversity and application volume, but this was not the case at most institution types.

In short, changing testing policies is not necessarily a universal remedy for school diversity and application volume; its effects are highly contextual.

Conclusion and Next Steps

For schools considering the role of testing in their admissions processes, it is important to understand the goals of these policies and explore institutional data to determine whether these goals are being met. This process is crucial for all components of the admissions package, as practiced in holistic admissions—gathering stakeholders, exploring mission, values, and goals, and using data to hold the process accountable. We will explore the rise of holistic admissions in a future post.