A new working paper from Dartmouth College researchers is providing yet more evidence that test-optional college admissions ended up hurting the very disadvantaged students the policy change was meant to help. Instead of boosting the chances of low-income or first-generation students, researchers found that not sending in their scores dramatically reduced their chances of admission.
"Under test score optional policies, less advantaged applicants who are high achieving submit test scores at too low a rate, significantly reducing their admissions chances; such applicants increase their admissions probability by a factor of 3.6x (from 2.9 percent to 10.2 percent) when they report their scores," reads the paper's abstract. "Much more than commonly understood, elite institutions interpret test scores in the context of background, and availability of test scores on an application can promote rather than hinder social mobility."
Following pandemic lockdowns that made standardized test-taking difficult, many colleges and universities switched to test-optional admissions, in which students were no longer required to send their SAT or ACT scores along with their applications. The change stuck around, with more than 2,100 of around 2,600 four-year colleges currently using test-optional or test-free admissions. The motivation for this change was rooted in a belief that standardized tests are biased against disadvantaged students—forgetting, however, that other measures like essays and grades also correlate with family income. Further, test scores have consistently been shown to accurately predict students' future academic performance.
