Yale to Require Standardized Testing Again

*Updated to reflect Harvard’s choice to return to standardized testing for the Class of 2025.

Yale University will require standardized test scores (again) for students applying for the class entering in the fall of 2025. This makes Yale the second Ivy League university to abandon test-optional policies that were widely adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yale officials said in an announcement on Thursday that the shift to test-optional policies might have unwittingly harmed students from lower-income families whose test scores could have helped their chances.

While it will require standardized tests, Yale said its policy would be “test flexible,” permitting students to submit scores from subject-based Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests in lieu of SAT or ACT scores.

Yale’s decision follows a similar decision in February from Dartmouth College and in April for Harvard. Dartmouth said an analysis had found that hundreds of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who had strong scores on the SAT had declined to submit them, fearing that they fell too far below the perfect score and Harvard’s leading researchers cite strong evidence that testing expands opportunity.

Columbia University is still test-optional. The California university system has enacted a “test-blind” policy, meaning they will not consider test scores even if they are submitted.

The University of Michigan, one of the country’s most selective public universities, recently announced that it was moving to a test-optional policy.

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