Harvard will reinstate standardized tests as an admissions requirement, the university announced Thursday, becoming the latest in a string of highly competitive universities to reverse their optional exam policies.
Students applying to enter Harvard in the fall of 2025 and beyond will need to submit SAT or ACT scores, though the university said some other test scores will be accepted in “exceptional cases,” including Advanced Placement tests or International Baccalaureate. The university previously said it was going to maintain its optional testing policy through the fall 2026 incoming class.
Hours after Harvard’s announcement, Caltech, a science and engineering institute, also said it was reinstating testing requirements for students applying for admission in the fall of 2025.
The schools were among nearly 2,000 colleges nationwide to drop test score requirements in recent years, a trend that escalated during the pandemic when it was harder for students to get to testing sites.
Dropping test score requirements was widely seen as a tool to diversify admissions, encouraging poor and underrepresented students who had potential but did not score well on tests to apply. But proponents of the tests said that without scores, it became harder to identify promising students who performed better in their environments.
In explaining its decision to accelerate the return to testing, Harvard cited a study by Opportunity Insights that found test scores were a better predictor of academic success in college than high school grades and that they can help admissions officers to identify exceptionally talented students from low-income groups who might otherwise go unnoticed.
“Standardized tests are a means for all students, regardless of background and life experience, to provide information that is predictive of success in college and beyond,” said Hopi Hoekstra, dean of the School of Arts and of Sciences, in a statement announcing the move.
“In short, more information, especially such powerfully predictive information, is valuable for identifying talent from across the socioeconomic spectrum,” he added.
Caltech, in Pasadena, Calif., said the reinstatement of testing requirements reaffirmed the school’s “commitment as a community of scientists and engineers to use all relevant data in its decision-making processes.”
Harvard and Caltech join a growing number of schools notable for their selectivity that have since reversed their policies, including Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, MIT, Georgetown, Purdue and the University of Texas at Austin.
For Harvard, the move comes at a time of transition and perhaps a return to more conservative policies.
Last June, the Supreme Court struck down racial college admissions in cases involving Harvard and the University of North Carolina, raising fears that by eliminating affirmative action, those schools would become less diverse.
And in January, Harvard’s first black president, Claudine Gay, resigned under pressure from critics who said she had not acted strongly enough to combat anti-Semitism on campus after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in Israel, and under mounting accusations of plagiarism in her academic. job, in which he stood by her.
Professor Alan Garber was named interim president, while law school dean John Manning became interim provost, the university’s second-highest administrative position. Mr. Manning is considered a strong candidate to replace Dr. Gay. His background is notable for its conservative associations, having served under former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
In the current campus climate, a return to test scores could be seen as a return to tradition. It may also address the concerns of many parents that the college admissions process, especially at elite institutions, is inscrutable and devoid of value.
Applications to Harvard are down 5 percent this year, while applications to many of its sister universities are up, suggesting the recent turmoil may have hurt its reputation. However, it still received a staggering number of undergraduate applications – 54,008 – and accepted only 3.6 per cent. Requiring test scores could make grading through applications more manageable.
Critics of standardized tests have long raised concerns that the tests helped fuel inequality because some wealthier students boosted their scores through high tuition prices. However, recent studies have found that test scores help predict college grades, the likelihood of graduation, and post-college success, and that test scores are more reliable than high school grades, partly because of grade inflation. degrees in recent years.
But Robert Schaeffer, director of public education at FairTest, an organization that opposes standardized testing, said Thursday that the Opportunity Insights analysis had been criticized by other researchers. “These scholars say that when the role of wealth is eliminated, test scores are no better than high school GPA,” he said, adding that it is unclear whether this pattern holds among admissions pools at highly selective colleges such as Harvard .
Mr. Schaeffer said at least 1,850 universities remain test-optional, including Michigan, Vanderbilt, Wisconsin and Syracuse, which have recently expanded their policies. “The vast majority of colleges will not require test scores.” An exception, he said, could be the University of North Carolina system, which is considering a plan to require the test, but only for those students with a GPA below 2.8.
Acknowledging critics’ concerns, Harvard said it would review the new policy regularly. The school said test scores will be considered along with other information about an applicant’s experience, skills, talents, community contributions and references. They will also be examined in the context of the progress of other students in the same high school.
“Admissions officers understand that not all students attend well-resourced schools, and those from modest economic backgrounds or first-generation college families may have had fewer opportunities to prepare for standardized tests,” said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and Harvard admissions and financial aid, it said in a release.
Harvard said that in the interest of choosing a diverse student body, it has increased financial aid and boosted recruitment of underserved students by joining a consortium of 30 public and private universities that recruit students from rural communities.
