The College Fix

Test scores ‘increase the diversity of the student body’: admissions office

Standardized test scores will be required once again for students interested in attending Yale University, the institution announced Thursday.

The Ivy League school is reinstating the admissions requirement for fall 2025 applicants and dropping its test-optional policy, created in 2020 in response to COVID-19, according to the university Admissions Office website.

Now, undergraduate applicants must include their scores from at least one of four standardized tests: SAT, ACT, Advanced Placement, or International Baccalaureate, the admissions office states.

Jeremiah Quinlan, dean of undergraduate admissions, told Yale News in a interview Thursday that test scores provide a strong indication of a student’s academic performance.

“Simply put, students with higher scores have been more likely to have higher Yale GPAs, and test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s performance in Yale courses in every model we have constructed,” Quinlan said.

Yale has seen a 66% increase in applications since 2020, including more than 57,000 this year, but the growth did not include “many more applicants with strong academic preparation,” he said.

Responding to concerns about standardized tests making acceptance more difficult for certain demographics of students, Quinlan said their experience has been the opposite.

“… including test scores as one component of a thoughtful whole-person review process can help increase the diversity of the student body rather than decrease it,” he said.

Yale is the second Ivy League school to reinstate a standardized test requirement for undergraduate admissions, following Dartmouth College on Feb. 5.

“Informed by new research, Dartmouth will reactivate the standardized testing requirement for undergraduate admission beginning with applicants to the Class of 2029,” the college stated in its announcement.

Both institutions emphasized that students’ test scores are only part of what they consider when deciding whether to issue an acceptance letter.

“Our process is, of course, very selective, but it is also holistic and contextual. Each applicant is considered as an individual, and officers conduct a whole-person review of each file,” Quinlan said.

In their announcements about the change, Yale and Dartmouth administrators also acknowledged that their current test-optional policies may have disadvantaged low-income students who otherwise may have been considered because of their test scores.

More than 1,900 colleges and universities had test optional admissions policies in 2023, The College Fix reported.

MORE: ‘Convinced by the data’: Dartmouth College reinstates SAT requirement

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