After the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for high school students to take the SAT and ACT, dozens of selective colleges dropped their testing requirement. Universities embraced test-optional policies under the assumption that they bolster equity and diversity, given that higher scores are positively correlated with socioeconomic privilege. However, these policies actually hurt the very students they are designed to help. On certain campuses, including the University of Texas at Austin and Dartmouth University, standardized testing requirements are making a comeback. If this trend continues, underprivileged students will have a rekindled opportunity to show elite universities how talented they are.
The SAT and ACT are some of the best ways for high potential low-income students to demonstrate their ability. A relatively high score from a less-privileged student is often an indicator of enormous potential, even if that score doesn’t amount to the results achieved by more affluent applicants. Admissions committees, like Dartmouth’s, also consider scores in the context of an applicant’s socioeconomic environment. With test-optional policies in place, many of these students, who might have otherwise benefited from the policy, refrained from submitting the test scores that might have earned them admittance to a good university. Many didn’t take the tests at all.
Emi Nietfeld, an author and software engineer, wrote about her experience as an underprivileged student applying to elite colleges in a New York Times Opinion article.
“Had submitting (my score) been optional, I most likely wouldn’t have done it, because I suspected my score was lower than the prep-school applicants I was up against,” Nietfield said. “When you grow up the way I did, it’s difficult to believe that you are ever good enough.”
But Nietfeld’s score was good enough, and she got into Harvard University. The admissions committee saw something in her that she couldn’t see in herself, a reality all too common for low-income students who often lack the tutors and non-academic credentials (such as extracurricular activities and perceived leadership traits) of their more affluent counterparts. For many of these students, a standardized test was the opportunity they needed to unlock a better future for themselves.
However, even if imposing testing requirements can help disadvantaged students gain admittance to competitive universities, a reduction in low-income applicants could negate that positive effect. Such logic assumes that mandating the SAT or ACT will dissuade low-income students, who often perform worse on the exams, from applying. As it turns out, however, no reduction actually occurs.
Before Dartmouth reinstituted its testing requirement, its economists conducted a report that found test-optional policies to “not necessarily increase the proportion of less-advantaged students in the applicant pool.” When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology restored its requirement, it admitted the most racially and economically diverse class in the school’s history.
Test-optional policies thus make it more difficult for universities to identify high-potential students from disadvantaged backgrounds, all while not having to incentivize more of such students to apply. Colleges partly made the SAT and ACT optional in an effort to appear more equitable and attract more underprivileged students, but they accomplished the opposite. Instead of offering low-income students more opportunities to demonstrate their academic ability, test-optional policies have restricted the factors that can elevate a disadvantaged student in the application process.
However, the incentives for students to apply are rendered meaningless if standardized tests cannot effectively predict a student’s success in college. Many proponents of test-optional policies suggest that test scores are a poor predictor of academic performance, alleging that the correlation between wealth and test scores undermines any power for the SAT and ACT to foretell how an underprivileged student might perform. If these critics are correct, the SAT and ACT should hold no significance in the admissions process.
But this case against testing requirements largely falls flat. In fact, due to grade inflation, the SAT and ACT have become better predictors of university success than one’s high school GPA. There’s even a correlation linking high test scores to higher graduation rates and higher post-college income. This correlation applies regardless of income level; disadvantaged students who achieve a high score relative to their environment demonstrate the potential to succeed at the collegiate level.
The view adopted by testing requirement critics is that SAT and ACT performance is the outcome of socioeconomic status alone. This is not the case, as high standardized test scores are often the result of hours of rigorous study. Yes, high wealth affords certain students with the tutors and well-funded schools often needed to attain exceptional scores. But this doesn’t prevent low-income applicants like Nietfeld from performing well through hard work and subsequently having their applications considered within their economic context.
The link between studying hours and test scores explains a noteworthy observation made by Harvard economist Raj Chetty in a recent study of elite college admissions. Although there is a correlation between wealth and performance on the SAT, there is a greater correlation between affluence and other college admissions factors. The Dartmouth report acknowledges that without test scores, admissions officers must “place more weight on other factors that have been shown to be biased toward higher-income students,” including guidance counselor recommendations and non-academic ratings.
It is thus no wonder that high scorers on standardized tests perform well at the college level. The tests measure one’s ability to overcome stress with hard work — largely the same process required to perform well in a college course, gain admittance to a good graduate school or acquire a high-paying job after graduation. Amid the subjectivity of the college admissions process, universities need a more reliable indicator of an applicant’s ability to do high-level academic work.
By implementing test-optional policies, elite colleges and universities have made it more difficult for talented yet underprivileged students to gain admission to their institutions. Without a testing requirement in place, many low-income students refuse to submit scores they believe are inferior to other applicants, even though such a score could get them admitted to their school of choice. Moreover, test-optional policies do not increase the relative number of disadvantaged applicants, making it even harder for such students to gain admission over their wealthier counterparts.
Yale University and Brown University have joined Dartmouth in restoring standardized testing requirements for applicants. All universities in the United States would be wise to follow their example. Admission to an elite university can lead to a better life for the socially and economically disadvantaged. Low-income students deserve a better chance.
Lucas Feller is an Opinion Columnist from Glencoe, Ill. He writes about politics, economics, and constitutional law. He can be reached at lucasfel@umich.edu.