In the spring of 2020, more than 1,300 colleges made the SAT and ACT optional, initially framing the change as a pandemic accommodation for students unable to reach closed testing centers. But the policy outlived the emergency. Test-optional admissions, which allow applicants to choose whether to submit scores, became a semi-permanent default at hundreds of universities and were increasingly defended on equity rather than public health grounds. Standardized tests, critics argued, measure wealth more than merit.
There is substantial evidence behind that criticism. College Board data shows that scores rise with family income, with students in the highest family income quintile outscoring those in the lowest by more than 250 points on average. Students from wealthier families are more likely to attend well-resourced schools, have access to advanced coursework, receive academic support, and pay for test preparation. A standardized test score can therefore reflect differences in opportunity as well as differences in academic preparation.
As such, some researchers have questioned the extent to which standardized tests improve admissions decisions. UC Berkeley’s Saul Geiser argues that high school grades predict first-year college success more effectively and that relying on SAT scores disadvantages Black, Latino, and low-income students. Because colleges serve different populations and academic purposes, evidence about standardized testing doesn’t necessarily produce the same conclusions everywhere. Predicting whether a student will succeed in one academic environment is also different from determining whether a testing requirement creates equitable access across higher education.
Test-optional policies have in fact produced measurable gains in access. One study of nearly 100 private colleges that adopted the policies before the pandemic found a 3% to 4% increase in Pell Grant enrollment and a 10% to 12% increase in first-time enrollment among students from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds. While other institutional changes may also have contributed, the study found that these increases were associated with the adoption of test-optional admissions, suggesting that testing requirements can create an additional barrier for some students.
Six years later, the consensus around test-optional admissions is unraveling. Yale ended its test-flexible policy in May 2026 after more than 80% of applicants in its two most recent cycles had submitted test scores anyway. The university also reported that scores remained the single strongest predictor of a Yale student’s grades. Columbia, the last Ivy League institution to remain test-optional, will require scores again starting with the 2027-2028 cycle. Meanwhile, the test-blind University of California System is facing sustained pressure from more than 3,000 of its own faculty who are concerned about deteriorating math preparation. One widely cited UC San Diego report found that roughly one in 12 entering students lacked middle-school-level math skills, raising concerns about admissions officers’ ability to assess academic preparation without a standardized measure.
These reversals do not prove that the SAT is fair. However, they do raise the question of whether removing it as a requirement made admissions any more equitable. Test-optional policies addressed one measure associated with wealth, but many of the advantages available to affluent applicants remained untouched.
A landmark study from Harvard’s Opportunity Insights research group — led by economists Raj Chetty, David Deming, and John Friedman — used admissions records linked to federal income-tax data. The report found that children from families in the top 1% are “more than twice as likely to attend an Ivy-Plus institution as middle-class applicants with the same test scores.” Two-thirds of that gap comes from wealthier students with comparable scores being admitted at higher rates. The researchers traced this advantage largely to legacy preferences, non-academic ratings that favor students from well-resourced private schools, and athletic recruitment, which disproportionately benefits families able to afford club sports and private coaching.
Deming, now dean of Harvard College, has argued that standardized testing can be a “lifeline” for academically talented students who do not attend elite high schools and might otherwise go unnoticed by admissions officers. For students at schools with fewer advanced courses or less familiar coursework, a standardized score can provide a common measure of academic preparation that may be harder to establish from a transcript alone. That matters in an admissions system where, as the Opportunity Insights findings show, many other advantages already favor wealthier applicants. Making standardized testing optional left those broader advantages unresolved.
Some of the inequity surrounding standardized testing may also stem from unequal access to the test itself. Research on universal college entrance testing showed that for every 10 low-income students who took an admissions test and scored college-ready, another five would have scored college-ready but never took one. That same study found that in Michigan, where the state requires and pays for standardized testing, the largest increases in four-year college enrollment occurred among students who otherwise were unlikely to take an admissions test as well as those attending the poorest high schools. Universal school-day testing can expand that opportunity while preserving a score that may help disadvantaged students.
Given the Opportunity Insights findings and the potential for improvements in testing equity, why did the SAT, rather than legacy preferences or athletic recruitment, become the dominant symbol of admissions inequality?
The answer may have more to do with visibility than magnitude. College Board reports have made income-based score gaps publicly visible for years. By contrast, the advantages associated with other admissions factors that favored wealthy applicants were more challenging for outsiders to quantify because admissions data are largely controlled by individual institutions. The Opportunity Insights researchers were uniquely able to document those advantages by combining anonymized college admissions records with federal tax and testing data.
The SAT was also easier for colleges to change. Thousands of colleges dropped testing requirements within months of the pandemic, while legacy preferences are tied to institutional incentives that are harder to unwind. Colleges have defended legacy admissions as a way to strengthen alumni engagement, encourage giving, preserve multigenerational ties to the institution, and, in some cases, improve enrollment yield.
A 2022 study of applicants to an unnamed elite college found that legacy students became more engaged alumni and tended to have wealthier parents who were better positioned to donate, even though they were not more academically qualified than non-legacy applicants. Those perceived institutional benefits give colleges reasons to preserve legacy preferences that do not exist for standardized testing requirements. The SAT therefore became a much easier target for reform, even as other admissions practices continued to advantage wealthier applicants.
As selective colleges restore testing requirements, the equity debate should move beyond the question of whether the SAT belongs in admissions. Universal school-day testing could help reduce some of the barriers that make standardized testing less accessible in the first place, while still preserving a measure that may benefit students whose academic ability is more difficult to see from the rest of their application.
Testing policy is only one part of a much larger admissions system. Removing a measure that reflects inequality is not the same as removing the advantages that produce it. If colleges are serious about equity, they will also need to confront the preferences and institutional practices that continue to advantage wealthier applicants.
