Most colleges continue to bypass standardized testing for applicants; advocates say it could stick and increase diversity

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, 750 higher learning institutions in the U.S. shifted to a test- optional application process, as millions of students had their SAT and ACT test dates canceled.

There are now more institutions in the U.S. with test-optional admissions than those that still require students to submit SAT or ACT scores, according to data from FairTest: National Center for Fair & Open Testing, an organization that advocates for the removal of testing requirements.

Among those institutions that shifted its policies in 2020 are Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia and the University of Richmond.

The changes spurred on by COVID-19 created a national experiment, and advocates of the test-optional approach say the results will galvanize universities to make the change permanent.

Research consistently shows that SAT and ACT scores correlate strongly with family income.

“They are great measures of accumulated opportunity. So the richest kids have the highest average scores and the poorest kids have the lowest average scores,” said Bob Schaeffer, executive director of Fairtest. “Taking down the test score barrier means that kids who perform well in the classroom who may have only mediocre scores get a chance to play at the next level and show that they are capable of doing college work.”

Officials from universities including UVA said they will spend the upcoming years studying whether or not testing requirements benefit students.

Last year, 43% of applications to the UVA were submitted test-optional, and so far this year, 42% of applications have been submitted test-optional. At this point, there isn't yet enough information to determine if introducing the option to submit applications without including SAT or ACT test scores has impacted diversity at UVA, said Bethanie Glover, deputy university spokesperson for UVA.

Nearly all schools that went test-optional during the pandemic have chosen to remain that way for the near future, and in many cases, for many years down the road. Schaeffer expects that when the pandemic passes, a significant majority of colleges and universities (including many of the most selective in the country) will remain or become test-optional – making that the norm.

“When schools go test optional, typically, they get more applicants,” Schaeffer said. “So they open up the pipeline. They get better academically qualified applicants in terms of grades and high school performance, and they get more diversity of all sorts in their applicant pool.”

Beyond the implicit bias of the test that presents itself in scores, the cost of a test also can prevent many students from even taking it.

Data shows a strong correlation between the number of economically disadvantaged students at each high school in Henrico County and the number of students who took the SAT last year.

At Deep Run High School in the Far West End, 61% of students in last year’s graduating class took the SAT. The school, with a majority white student population, has the fewest students in the county deemed by the state to be “economically disadvantaged,” a rough gauge of poverty.

More than three times as many students took the test at Deep Run compared to Hermitage High School and Varina High School, where between 18% and 22% of the graduating classes took the test.  Both are majority-Black schools where 60-63% of students were deemed economically disadvantaged.

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The Henrico County Public Schools division does not pay for students to take the SAT or ACT tests.

A spokeswoman for the school system told the Citizen she was not aware of any talks or considerations about the school system requiring students to take the SAT or ACT and covering the costs of those tests.

A 2013 study shows that when school systems require and pay for all students to take the ACT or SAT, it can moderately increase the number of poor students who attend college. The effects are meager, noted the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Education Finance and Policy, but the strategy is simple and it does move the needle.

The study found that the policy increased four-year college enrollment by at least 0.6% overall and by about 1% for boys, students in poverty and students attending high-poverty schools.

Some Virginia schools had test-optional policies long before the pandemic, including Virginia Commonwealth University, James Madison University, Old Dominion University and George Mason University.

When VCU President Michael Rao announced in 2015 that the university would drop its test requirement, he called the test “fundamentally flawed” and referred to the SAT’s racial and socio-economic biases, which were verified by VCU’s internal research.

Since then, VCU’s applicant pool has become more diverse based on a number of factors — including but not limited to the elimination of test scores, said VCU spokesman Brian McNeill.

“When schools go test optional, typically, they get more applicants,” Schaffer said. “They get better academically qualified applicants in terms of grades and high school performance, and they get more diversity of all sorts in their applicant pool. They get more and more low-income kids, more first-generation kids, more Black, brown and new Asian immigrant kids, more second language applicants than they did when they required test scores.”

While many studies suggest this, the research is not unanimous. Studies (authored by editors who have worked for the College Board, which administers the SAT and ACT) found that taking away testing requirements does not increase the number of underrepresented students.

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Anna Bryson is the Henrico Citizen’s education reporter and a Report for America corps member. Make a tax-deductible donation to support her work, and RFA will match it dollar for dollar. Sign up here for her free weekly education newsletter.