Harvard and Caltech will require test scores for admission again
The colleges join other selective universities that have recently made similar decisions in the wake of new research
A passerby walks through a gate on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Mass. (Steven Senne/AP)
Updated April 11, 2024 at 10:48 p.m. EDT|Published April 11, 2024 at 10:21 a.m. EDT
Harvard College will require applicants to submit standardized test scores once again, becoming the latest highly selective school to reinstate the requirement after making the choice optional during the pandemic.
The California Institute of Technology also announced Thursday that, effective immediately, SAT or ACT scores will be required of applicants for undergraduate admission.
Harvard’s undergraduate school had previously said it would remain test-optional through the 2025-2026 application cycle. But on Thursday, it said students applying to the college for fall 2025 admission — hoping to join the graduating class of 2029 — will now have to submit standardized test scores as part of their admissions package.
Dartmouth College, Yale and Brown universities announced similar changes in recent weeks, after officials cited data suggesting that SAT and ACT scores were the best predictors of students’ academic performance at their schools — and that making the tests optional could further disadvantage applicants from more challenging backgrounds.
At Caltech, the highly selective private university in California, applicants’ scores weren’t visible to the admissions office under the moratorium imposed during the pandemic. But an increasing number of applicants had been taking the tests each year, according to university officials. More than 95 percent of the most recently enrolled class took the standardized exam.
Caltech officials said Thursday the decision reaffirms Caltech’s “commitment as a community of scientists and engineers to using all relevant data in its decision-making processes.”
Standardized tests have been debated for decades, with critics saying they added a roadblock for disadvantaged students, among other concerns. When the coronavirus pandemic shut down testing sites across the country, many colleges made the tests optional, and then continued to provide flexibility as they studied the issue.
The changes are another pivot in an unusually tumultuous time for selective college admissions amid fallout from last year’s Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action, and a disastrous rollout of a new federal financial aid form.
Standardized tests are just one part of a package of information applicants send, including grades, essays and recommendation letters. But millions of students study for, take and retake the tests in hopes of optimizing their scores.
Most students who enrolled at Harvard during the test-optional years had submitted test scores with their applications even though they weren’t required, according to the school.
Still, the shift could come as a surprise for some applicants who hadn’t planned to take a test.
In announcing its decision Thursday, university officials cited research by Harvard professors Raj Chetty and David J. Deming, and co-author John N. Friedman of Brown University, who used data from hundreds of universities and more than 3 million undergraduate students per year to explore socioeconomic diversity and admissions.
“Critics correctly note that standardized tests are not an unbiased measure of students’ qualifications, as students from higher-income families often have greater access to test prep and other resources,” Chetty said in a statement Thursday. “But the data reveal that other measures — recommendation letters, extracurriculars, essays — are even more prone to such biases. Considering standardized test scores is likely to make the admissions process at Harvard more meritocratic while increasing socioeconomic diversity.”
In “exceptional cases” when applicants are unable to take the SAT or ACT, the school will accept certain other scores, including AP and IB tests. The policy will be formally assessed at regular intervals, school officials said.
Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi Hoekstra said the tests are a means for all students, regardless of their background and life experience, to provide information predictive of success in college and beyond.
“Indeed, when students have the option of not submitting their test scores,” Hoekstra said in a statement, “they may choose to withhold information that, when interpreted by the admissions committee in the context of the local norms of their school, could have potentially helped their application. In short, more information, especially such strongly predictive information, is valuable for identifying talent from across the socioeconomic range.”
Other highly selective schools remain test-optional, including the University of Chicago, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, which announced last month that it would not require the scores for the 2024-25 application cycle. The University of California system is test-blind — schools don’t consider the scores as a factor in admissions.
