Yale requires standardized test scores for admission
Yale University will require standardized test scores for admission for students applying in fall 2025, becoming the second Ivy League university to abandon the optional testing policy that was widely embraced during the Covid pandemic.
Yale officials said in an announcement Thursday that the shift to test-optional policies may have unknowingly harmed students from lower-income families whose test scores could have boosted their chances.
While standardized testing is needed, Yale said the policy would be “flexible testing,” allowing students to submit scores from subject-based Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests in place of SAT or ACT scores.
Yale's decision, which will not affect students who applied during the current admissions cycle, followed a similar decision in February by Dartmouth College. Dartmouth, in Hanover, N.H., said an analysis had found that hundreds of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who had earned good scores — in the 1,400 range on the SAT — had declined to submit them, fearing that they would fall too far below the perfect 1,600. In 2022, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that this was the case restored its testing requirement.
These institutions remain in the minority. Many decided to maintain their testing policies as the pandemic subsided.
The number of students taking the SAT fell to 1.7 million in 2022, down from 2.2 million in 2020.
More than 80 percent of four-year colleges — or at least 1,825 of the nation's bachelor's degree-granting institutions — will not require SAT or ACT scores this fall, according to the organization Fair Test, which has fought against standardized testing.
The anti-testing movement has long argued that standardized testing increases inequality because many students from affluent families use teachers and coaches to improve their scores.
After last year's Supreme Court decision banning race-conscious recording, many experts predicted that test-optional policies would become even more widespread.
But recent research has questioned whether test-optional policies can actually harm the students they were intended to help.
In January, Opportunity Insights, a group of economists based at Harvard, published a study showing that test scores could help identify lower-income students and students from underrepresented populations who would do well in college. High scores of disadvantaged students can indicate great potential.
Yale, in New Haven, Conn., said test scores were particularly valuable in evaluating students who attend high schools with fewer academic resources or college preparatory courses.
Jeremiah Quinlan, the dean of undergraduate admissions at Yale, said in a written statement released by the university that Yale had determined that test scores, while imperfect, were predictive of academic success in college.
If students do not submit test scores, the admissions committee focuses on other elements of the student file, Mr. Quinlan said. For students from privileged backgrounds, substitutes for standardized tests are easy to find, he said, citing teacher recommendations, advanced courses and extracurricular activities.
Yale recently said it had received more than 57,000 admissions applications this fall, a record number due in part to the university's test-optional policy. The admission rate at Yale is about 4 percent.
Mr. Quinlan said that Yale had recently admitted 1,000 students who had not submitted test scores and that they had done relatively well in their Yale courses.