Test Optional Admissions
An update for the 2025-2026 admissions cycle
Earlier this month, the University of Austin announced their new admissions process on Twitter, which some higher ed commentators have dubbed a “test only” admissions policy:
Now, there are several reasons that this announcement is NOT a big deal. The first is that the University of Austin is really only a “university” in name only. Not only are they not currently accredited, but they also don’t actually offer any graduate degrees, which is typically expected for any postsecondary school calling itself a university. Additionally, the University of Austin is new (first class started in 2024), tiny (less than 100 students), and, given that they feel (to my cynical heart) like more of a political stunt than true academic institution, they are unlikely to be a major player in higher education anytime soon. In short, they aren’t normally the kind of institution that I would pay much attention to, in terms of higher ed trends.
However… it’s time for us to talk about test optional admissions policies again and, unfortunately, the University of Austin is a part of that conversation.
Please note that I am having a *VERY* difficult time not writing that as the “University” (but not really) of Austin. Please applaud my restraint
As the start of the fall 2026 admissions cycle draws closer and the Trump administration has begun to call for “comprehensive admission reform”1, test optional admissions policies are once again shifting at some of the most high profile schools. The conversation about test policies is becoming increasingly political at the same time as some highly competitive schools are finally admitting the truth that test optional policies really were a false promise when it comes to increasing access to highly selective schools.
Given all of that, let’s talk about what’s going on with test optional admissions policies, what’s changing, and what high schoolers and their parents should do about the ACT/SAT now.
What Hasn’t Changed
Like many things related to getting into college, it can be helpful to think of admissions as being a two tiered system where the rules/advice/guidance are dependent on whether or not a student is primarily hoping to get admitted to a highly selective2 schools or not.
(As a reminder: the majority of college students do not go to highly selective schools. The vast majority of colleges and universities are not highly selective. The majority of four-year colleges and universities admit 65% or more of their students)
A note before we dive in: Usually I try to use the most inclusive definition of “college” and talk about both two and four year institutions, but given that community and technical colleges were almost entirely test optional pre-pandemic and thus haven’t really changed their policies, for the purposes of this post you can safely assume that I’m talking about four year colleges and universities.
As of right now, the following things are still true:
Most colleges and universities (70-80% by some estimates) are still test optional for admissions purposes, though some will still accept and use ACT/SAT scores for course placement in subjects like math and English.
The Cal State and University of California systems continue to be test blind (meaning test scores are not considered for admissions, even if they are submitted).
Some states/systems have made enacted policies that indicate a long term commitment to test optional policies. For example, all public baccalaureate institutions in the state of Washington are “permanently” test optional. According to one estimate, some 1,700 colleges and universities have pledged to be permanently test optional, so students who are looking for test optional policies are going to continue to have plenty of options
Most high school seniors are still taking either the ACT or SAT (or both, in some overachieving cases). According to the most recent data from the high school graduating class of 2023, 37% of seniors took the ACT and 51% took the SAT.
My advice about whether or not students should take the ACT/SAT has also not changed: I think that, unless there is a significant financial barrier3, students who are planning to apply to four year colleges should take a test at least once. Their score is just a data point and they can still largely decide when and how they want to use it, so it doesn’t hurt to at least know what kind of score they are working with. Students who want to go to highly selective schools will have to test, there’s really no getting around that now.
Test Scores: Yes, Please
The list of highly selective schools that now require test scores has been growing. As of this admissions cycle, students will need to submit scores at all of the following schools: Baylor University, Brown, Cal Tech, Dartmouth, Florida State, Gallaudet University, Georgia Tech, Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, University of Florida, University of Miami, University of Pennsylvania, University of South Florida, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, University of Texas-Austin, and Yale4.
Note that this isn’t a comprehensive list, but some of the bigger names. There are other institutions, especially in Florida and Texas, that are less selective but also returning to test required policies, likely for political reasons.
There are also some high profile schools that have announced plans to return to required test scores for applicants wishing to start in fall 2026 or later, including:
Cornell University (2026)
John Hopkins (2026)
Vanderbilt (2027)
University of Connecticut (2027)
Penn State (2027)
Syracuse (2027)
Carnegie Mellon (2026)
There are also some schools that have made a finite commitment to being test optional and whose language suggests they are leaving the door open to returning to test scores:
University of Wisconsin Madison’s website states “Students who are applying for admission in spring 2025, fall 2025, spring 2026, fall 2026, and spring 2027 will not be required to submit an ACT or SAT score as part of their application for admission.”
University of North Carolina is moving toward a model of being test optional for students with certain GPAs, but requiring minimum test scores for students with lower GPAs, effective for enrollment in 2027-2028 academic year.
Brigham Young University states they are “test optional for most applicants through winter 2027”
Barnard College is “test-optional temporarily through the 2027 application cycles”
Auburn University is “a test-preferred institution” that notes that “admission is based mainly on your high school courses, grades, and academic rigor.” Mainly may be doing some heavy lifting in that sentence.
Emory University is test optional through the fall 2026 cycle but is going to “continue to evaluate our selection process, analyze indicators of academic promise, and assess how we can further advance equity, access, and diversity in our student community.”
Texas Christian University is currently test optional through fall 2026, but notes that they think “ACT or SAT scores are helpful because they provide a similar scale of performance for all applicants on a nationally standardized exam.”
The False Promise of Test Optional Admissions
One of the real ironies of test optional admissions policies at highly selective institutions is that rather than increasing access, they may actually have made it harder to get into these schools.
When test optional policies went to effect, some folks were hopeful that having the choice to apply without test scores might level the playing field a little for students who have strong academic records but maybe don’t have access to things like SAT/ACT prep courses, coaches, and tutoring that wealthier students might use to get the highest possible scores. Maybe it would also help students who have test anxiety or learning differences that affect their ability to score high on a standardized test. Maybe one “bad” score wouldn’t cancel out a lifetime of academic success.
Well, about that…
One of the first results of test optional admissions policies is that application numbers soared at most highly competitive schools, likely because some students with less competitive test scores who might normally have self-selected out of applying decided to go for it when they thought test scores weren’t going to be a deal breaker anymore.
The leap from 2020 to 2021 at Yale was intense.
And it isn’t just schools in the Ivy League, as Carnegie Mellon’s numbers demonstrate:
Although some of these schools may have opted to slightly increase the number of students they offered admissions to, it wasn’t enough to offset the spike in applications so the percentage of applicants who got rejected actually increased under test optional policies.
And the students who chose to apply without submitting test scores? It turns out that, according to emerging data, they were much more likely to get rejected than to get admitted.
While not every school reveals this data, the picture is stark for the ones that do.
I am somewhat comforted to see that some of the more highly selective schools are being candid about this reality. Yale’s dean of undergraduate admissions Jeremiah Quinlan shared on a podcast that one of the reasons that were returning to requiring test scores was because they realized that they were not “being honest about the about the reality of our admissions process to students and parents” because they were “denying 98 percent of the students who are applying without test scores.”
Internal research from Cornell University revealed that several interesting findings including that there was not a “clear indication that the relaxation of the testing requirement has increased the diversity of matriculating first year students”. Further, they found that “the submission of test scores has a substantial and statistically significant impact on the chances of being admitted” to the schools own test-optional colleges.
Test Scores Get Political
One of the great myths of highly selective admissions is that getting in has ever been wholly based on merit. There have always, always, always been some kinds of students who have had unearned advantages in the process, whether it was from historical bans/caps on students based on race/sex/religion or in the form of legacy admissions, or just the continued advantages of being wealthy.
I find myself thinking about this myth whenever I see pundits (or schools like the University of Austin) argue that requiring test scores is some magical way to return to a golden age where college admissions was “fair” and based on “merit”. This call for a return to test scores is, IMHO, driven by the misguided notion that affirmative action admissions policies were really allowing less academically qualified students to be admitted in the place of (white) students who “deserved” those spots and that test scores allows for “apples to apples” comparisons of students to find the “best” students, without consideration of student demographics, class, family income, etc.
Take a wild guess which students benefit the most in that scenario.
(if your answer was “rich”, you win!)
Given this political discourse, I suspect we’ll continue to see more schools (both public and private) in red states reinstate testing requirements in the next few years, especially as the federal government continues to try to find ways to punish the colleges it just doesn’t like.
Bottom Line
I’ve wrestled with my own feelings about test optional admissions policies in the last few years. I both think that test scores can tell us *something* about an applicant (e.g. a student with a math subset score of 15 is probably going to have a tougher time as an engineering major than someone who got a 35) and that in no universe does it tell us *everything* about an applicant. I think you can make a good faith argument that high school GPAs are increasingly inflated and that AI is probably making the process of evaluating essays more difficult.
I think you can argue that there are ways in which test scores aren’t fair… but I also think it’s not fair for colleges to offer test optional admissions policies if they know that they are much more likely to say no to the students who apply without scores.
When it comes to highly selective admissions, I have profound doubts that it will ever be a fair process, but I’m not mad at the return to requiring test scores if it at least makes the process more honest.
No, nobody really knows that that means
For the our purposes, we’ll label any school that has a 25% or lower acceptance rate as “highly selective”
And if there is a significant financial barrier, check into fee waivers. A high school counseling office can help with this.
As of now, Columbia University appears to be the only Ivy League institution that plans to remain test optional