What Does it Mean to be Test-Optional?

Students applying to college have traditionally been required to submit scores from standardized tests like the SAT or ACT. In recent years, however, a growing number of schools have adopted test-optional policies, meaning students can choose whether or not to include scores in their application. Some schools have gone even further to adopt test-blind policies, meaning they will not consider test scores, even if a student submits them. This category includes the entire University of California and California State systems.  

The debate over test-optional admissions is not new. Bowdoin College became test-optional in 1969, but it was not until the 1990s that the movement began to pick up. Studies began reporting that standardized tests favored white, affluent students and only predicted freshman-year GPA, rather than college success. 

Test-optional admissions became mainstream during COVID-19. When testing centers closed in spring 2020, the number of test-optional schools nearly doubled from 713 to 1,350. However, the waves of adoption had different motivations: pandemic-era schools went test optional out of necessity, while pre-pandemic adopters did so to increase diversity and equity.

Do Test-Optional Policies Make Admissions More Equitable? 

Supporters of test-optional admissions argue that standardized tests are structurally biased. Tests are designed to create a score curve along socioeconomic lines, and achievement gaps correspond with school funding disparities rooted in exclusionary housing and education policy. Because most public schools are funded largely through local property taxes, districts in wealthier neighborhoods can spend far more per student than poorer communities. Decades of discriminatory practices like redlining, in which banks and government agencies denied mortgages and services to residents of mostly Black neighborhoods, pushed families of color into lower-value areas and created the funding gaps that later resurface as score gaps. Proponents of test-optional policies claim standardized tests are “better proxies for how many opportunities a student has been afforded than they are predictors for students’ potential.” In other words, scores reflect accumulated opportunity rather than raw ability.

Those in favor of test-optional policies also argue that high school GPA is a more fair metric. Research found that a high GPA in high school correlates with first-year college grades, second-year persistence, and third-year retention independently of SAT or ACT scores; these findings held for first-generation students, low-income students, and students of color. The University of Michigan adds that their holistic review practices account for K-12 disparities that standardized tests cannot. Minority and low-income students are disproportionately concentrated in under-resourced schools and evaluated against peers with advantages such as better extracurriculars, more AP courses, and stronger counseling networks.

Finally, research found that roughly two thirds of test-optional schools saw growth in underrepresented minority students above that of peer schools that kept requirements. Brookings also notes that low scores can create a self-fulfilling prophecy, discouraging high potential students from applying to college altogether.

Do Test-Optional Policies Help or Hinder the Students They are Meant to Serve? 

Opponents of test-optional policies argue that grade inflation has made GPA an increasingly unreliable metric. Average high schools GPAs have risen while test scores have fallen, making it harder for admissions offices to distinguish between applicants. Grade inflation is worse at private schools, meaning students from under-resourced public schools could face a greater disadvantage than they would under test-required admissions.  

Research also shows that test scores outperform high school GPA as a predictor of college success. A Dartmouth study found that SAT scores better predicted the GPAs of incoming freshmen as compared to high school GPAs, and that adopting test-optional policy did not meaningfully diversify Dartmouth’s applicant pools.

Additionally, test-optional policies may hurt the very students they are designed to help. High-achieving, disadvantaged students have been found to suppress strong scores under test-optional policies, reducing their admission chances. Less advantaged applicants with scores of 1400 and above were 3.6 times more likely to be admitted when they submitted scores. Without test scores, admissions offices tend to rely on subjective factors like letters of recommendation and extracurriculars, which the Dartmouth study notes hinders disadvantaged students and does “not predict academic success in college or earnings later in life.” 

Future Outlook

The landscape around this debate is actively changing. Over 90 percent of four-year colleges will not require test scores in fall 2026. However, more applicants are submitting scores at schools that do not require them, with submission rates up 10 percent this application cycle. This suggests that even without formal requirements, standardized testing is regaining cultural weight in the admissions process. Some prominent universities have gone further and dropped test-optional altogether. Among others, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, and MIT have all reinstated testing requirements in recent years, arguing that test scores help them identify talented lower-income applicants who may otherwise be overlooked.

The federal government has added a new dimension to this debate. In 2025, the Trump Administration’s Department of Education launched investigations into more than 2,100 colleges with test-optional policies, arguing the policies may function as proxies for race-conscious admissions. The administration believes standardized test scores provide an objective measure of academic merit, and that test-optional policies make it harder to identify discriminatory practices.

The test-optional debate ultimately centers on what predicts college success and how admissions processes can best serve students from all backgrounds. Supporters of test-optional policies argue that standardized tests measure wealth and opportunity more than ability, and test-optional policy opens doors for students who have been systematically disadvantaged. On the other hand, opponents say that test scores remain the most reliable predictor of college performance, and that test-optional policies can inadvertently harm high-achieving, disadvantaged students who do not submit their scores. 

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