In a recent move, Yale University announced their reinstatement of standardized testing as a required portion in their undergraduate application reviews, which is planned to begin with the class entering in the fall of 2025. In the announcement on February 22, 2024, Yale officials cited that their test-optional policies may have had the unintended effect of harming low-income students who didn’t submit test scores that could’ve otherwise helped their applications. By doing so, they have become the most recent in a string of “elite” universities (including Dartmouth College and MIT) to abandon the test-optional policies that were enacted during the COVID pandemic.
Most colleges currently are either test-optional or test-blind, with both meaning that standardized testing is not required for undergraduate applications to the college. For test-optional policies, schools will only consider standardized testing scores if the students chooses to submit them, while test-blind schools will not use scores at all, regardless of whether the applicant submits them or not. It is estimated that over 80% of schools have one of these two types of testing policies, which makes Yale’s decision (along with its testing compatriots) that much more unique in the current application environment.
In its decision, Yale cited a study conducted by Dartmouth College about the effect of using test-optional policies, which was directed by Sian Beilock—Dartmouth’s recently appointed president. Four professors at Dartmouth (Elizabeth Cascio, Bruce Sacerdote, Doug Staiger and Michele Tine) dug into the numbers after the school’s test-optional policies, which resulted in several key findings about standardized testing.
The first was largely expected: test scores were a better predictor of student success at Dartmouth than high school grades, student essays, or teacher recommendations—the other main portions of an undergraduate application. Beyond that though, a second finding was much more surprising in that test-optional policies were actually hurting lower-income students. By analyzing the scores of students who had not submitted them to Dartmouth, the researchers found that many lower-income students had withheld scores that otherwise would’ve helped boost their application. As test-optional policies are associated with a higher average submitted test score at many colleges, many of these students wrongly believed that their scores were too low to be worth submitting. The professors who conducted the study even said in a memo, “There are hundreds of less-advantaged applicants with scores in the 1,400 range who should be submitting scores to identify themselves to admissions, but do not under test-optional policies.”
This study matches Yale’s own research about standardized testing. Their data indicates that, “among all application components, test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future Yale grades. This is true even after controlling for family income and other demographic variables, and it is true for subject-based exams such as AP and IB, in addition to the ACT and SAT.”
However, these decisions have also faced criticism, with some arguing that the tests are racially or economically biased. Beilock disagreed however, stating that, “The research suggests this tool is helpful in finding students we might otherwise miss.”
As it stands, Yale University, Dartmouth College, MIT, and several other schools have all reinstated standardized tests as a requirement for application. But only time will tell whether this is a wise decision for determining admission.
