The Comeback of Standardized Testing

After 2020, standardized testing appeared to have been a thing of the past– until 2024, when it made its great comeback. 

Over the next few months, thousands of high school students will sit down to take the SAT. But, for many of them, they have been under the impression for several years that taking either the SAT or ACT would not be a requirement for them. However, as more colleges announce they are returning to a test-required policy, it is slowly becoming apparent that the pendulum is swinging back to a world where standardized testing is a required part of the college process. 

Prior to 2020, only a very few schools were test-optional, meaning they did not require standardized testing as part of the application. Most of these were small liberal arts colleges, not Ivies or large public schools. Schools like Wake Forest and the University of Chicago were some of the few private, highly selective schools that weren’t liberal arts colleges to be test-optional. However, when the COVID-19 Pandemic began, just as the class of 2021 was getting ready to start taking their springtime tests, the world began to shut down. Some students, worried about the success of their test-free college applications, were booking flights and driving hundreds of miles to find testing centers that could administer the exam. But it soon became clear, especially since most people with any sort of accommodations found it impossible to book an appointment, that testing for the 2021 fall applicant cycle was simply not going to happen. 

For several years after that, many schools continued to remain test-optional, with large public systems like the UCs remaining test-blind. However, in the last few years, many schools, including Ivies and large public schools, have moved towards requiring standardized testing. Why?

According to New Roads Assistant Director of College Counseling Lacy Hall, “There is a movement among our most selective universities—not all of them, but that does seem to be an area where we are seeing more schools go back to requiring the test, as well as public universities in southern states.”

(Photograph: Harvard College Dean of Students Office)

Patti Demoff, an independent counselor since 1986, concurred. “Colleges give all kinds of reasons. When Dartmouth went back to required testing last year, they claimed it would improve diversity because some people were reluctant to send scores in that weren’t as high as Dartmouth’s average, but high for their area. Other schools have admitted that they have too many applicants, and due to grade inflation, they need to be able to differentiate. The SAT and ACT may be a flawed metric, but it’s a metric.” 

How is this decision made? Most often, it is done through the college’s boards, who often make the decision based on conducted research.

“I know many schools are conducting studies to look at students’ success from cohorts of test-optional students and test-submitted students through their four years of college,” Hall says.

Now, the question that high school juniors across America grapple with: how are these changes going to affect application season?

What’s tricky about this whole dilemma is that we aren’t even sure if schools that are currently test-optional will remain test-optional or go test-blind for upcoming applicants. 

“We still need to wait to see if any other schools announce if they are requiring test scores,” Hall says. After many schools had the largest number of applicants in years for the 2024-5 admissions cycle, some schools that are going back to testing for 2025-6, like the University of Miami and The Ohio State University (both of whom announced the change fairly late), may see drops in applicants. According to Demoff, when several Ivies went back to testing, they saw drops in applications. 

For some people, going back to standardized testing isn’t all bad, though. According to Demoff, not submitting test scores may have hurt some applicants this admissions cycle. “For the last few years, people have had such a skewed idea of what test scores are acceptable that people with very good scores weren’t sending them in, because they didn’t think they were high enough. In some instances, it may have helped them in the decision process. It has become exhausting for both the counselors and the students, deliberating on whether to send in a 1550, and this eliminates some of that.” 

(Photograph: Amazon)

So, should you take the test? First, it’s important to keep in mind, like many counselors are saying, that average test scores for schools like OSU are very skewed, so for the 2025-6 admissions cycle, the average won’t be a 1440, but much lower. For Miami, an ACT score below 30 will be far more common than last year’s range of 30-33. So, it’s important not to make a decision on applying to a school based on its average score. 

When asked if she encourages New Roads Juniors to take the test regardless of whether they are applying to test-required schools or not, Hall says, “It really comes down to each person, because we want to think about what are the ways in which you really feel comfortable showing who you are as a student, [and] where you are thriving. If testing isn’t one of those ways that you feel really comfortable or shows who you are as a student, maybe that’s not the pathway for you. But sometimes, it is helpful to do a practice test or maybe take the official SAT or ACT, to see where your score is, see where there’s areas of potential growth, and see if test prep is something you want to do, or if testing can be a tool for you to strengthen your application.” 

So, essentially, in the end, it’s still all up to you.