As the next school year approaches, a surprising change has been mentioned and rumored for the college application process. An old requirement is being brought back and used for some specific prestigious colleges. Many academic minds think it is a great idea to encourage students to be educated and ready for college.
The reinstatement of standardized test scores on college applications for a number of Ivy league, prestigious private and public schools in 2026 is a big deal. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, most colleges made applications test-optional, meaning students could submit scores if they wanted, but not doing so would not count against them
At first, this change seemed good as standardized tests do not work for all students, but according to the Los Angeles Times, “Making the tests optional was actually counterproductive, Dartmouth, Yale, and Brown found. Their applicant pools became less diverse because low-income students and students of color were less likely to apply even if they had good test scores, thinking they had not tested well enough.”
This is one of the reasons competitive schools are bringing back the SAT requirements. The U.S. News reports that Columbia University is the only Ivy League school so far that hasn’t returned the test requirements. Many competitive and famous universities like John Hopkins, MIT, Stanford, University of Texas at Austin, and some public universities in Florida and Georgia have brought it back.
A recently-released study by UCSD about the declining preparedness of their new students highlighted this trend. Originally, UCSD had a class called “Math 2” to hopefully fill in any math knowledge gaps some students had from high school. It was meant for fewer than 100 students at most, which was 0.5 percent of the student population.
The UCSD mathematics department was caught off guard by the steep rise in students in need in 2023 and scrambled to make another curriculum called “Math 3B”.
By this point, it was clear that it was not just gaps in high school knowledge, according to UCSD’s Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions (SAWG), “Now most students had knowledge gaps that went back much further, to middle and even elementary school.”
Today, the number has grown to 900 first-year students in remedial classes, which is an alarming 12.5 percent of the freshman population. UCSD claims the two main factors were the pandemic and the halted use of standardized testing.
The SAT and ACT tests have been criticized for being unfair due to the strong correlation with higher-income students and higher scores. However, colleges found that the tests were great at predicting which students would succeed in college. In the coming years, the SAT has also gained many free and public resources for studying.
So, is it wise to bring back the standardized test application requirement? Absolutely. In today’s school system, we prioritize passing points rather than our original mission of teaching students to thrive and change in the world.
Bringing back tests will allow people who deserve to be admitted and are prepared for college to get accepted.
Instead of someone who is completely underprepared at Harvard taking a spot, someone who is extremely knowledgeable and can thrive will be there.
It’s not that people who are not yet prepared for a four-year college should not go to college ever; it’s that They should go when they are prepared.
Community college is a wonderful option for students who do not do well on a standardized test because their college course work is what qualifies them.
Community college is often put down or looked at as “less than”.
The reality is that community college has lower costs, and is flexible enough to allow students to simultaneously work on their careers.
Colleges requiring standardized test scores for admission is a good thing for our education system. Students will get back to really learning, and colleges will be sufficiently prepared to teach the students who are ready for them.
