If you follow college admissions news, this has been a busy summer for testing. More than 3,000 professors have joined the UC faculty campaign supporting the return of admissions testing⁠, and Columbia became the final Ivy League school to require standardized test scores again⁠. I want to unpack what is happening and what it could mean for your student.

Before the pandemic, most colleges required the SAT or ACT. When testing centers closed, hundreds of schools moved to test optional admissions almost overnight. For the next several years, students submitted scores when they helped and left them out when they did not. Universities were happy to go along because it increased their average test score and decreased their admit rate (since students would “take a shot” at schools that used to look out of reach).

Now, more colleges are returning to required testing.

There are two main reasons. Grade inflation has made GPAs harder to interpret. A 4.0 is still an accomplishment, but admissions offices are seeing more applicants than ever with A averages. Colleges have also had several years to study their own admissions data. Many have found that test scores, considered alongside grades and course rigor, can help predict how a student will perform in college. They want to admit students who are prepared to succeed and graduate.

Test optional admissions have also changed the score ranges families see online. When mostly confident test takers submit scores, the published numbers naturally rise. Over time, those ranges stop representing the full applicant pool.

NYU is a good example:

NYU, 2019 to 2020, before test optional admissions⁠

SAT middle 50 percent: 1370 to 1510

ACT middle 50 percent: 30 to 34

Students submitting scores: approximately 92 percent

NYU, 2024 to 2025, during test optional admissions⁠

SAT middle 50 percent: 1480 to 1550

ACT middle 50 percent: 34 to 35

Students submitting scores: approximately 38 percent

The bottom of NYU’s SAT range rose by 110 points while the percentage of students submitting scores fell by more than half. The smaller group of students reporting scores included many of the strongest testers, which pushed the published range higher.

As more colleges require every applicant to submit a score, those ranges will likely begin moving closer to where they were before the pandemic.

A student in the Class of 2028 who earns a 1440 can still be very much in the conversation at NYU, even with a currently published range that begins at 1480. The score is only one part of the application, and the current range reflects a year when fewer than half of students submitted one.

If your student is in 9th, 10th, or 11th grade, I would avoid building a college plan around skipping the SAT or ACT. One required school on the final list means your student will need a score. Preparing early keeps more options available.

I would also be careful with the phrase, “My student is not good at standardized testing.” Test taking is a skill. Students can improve once they understand the format, develop a strategy, and have enough time to practice.

Some students will still apply test optional, and plenty of excellent colleges will continue allowing them to do so.

The goal is to preserve choice. Your student can prepare, take the test, see how it goes, and then decide how the score fits into the larger application strategy. That keeps far more doors open.

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