Northern Illinois University and Indiana University’s Bloomington campus recently went test optional, joining more than 1,080 four-year schools that nixed the requirement for standardized testing. In the last year, nearly 60 schools adopted policies that de-emphasize test scores as an admissions factor.
Starting with liberal arts schools in the Northeast as early as the late 1960s, the test optional movement gained steam as a way to increase student diversity. Research shows that underrepresented students, who often have less preparation, score lower on college entrance exams like the SATs and ACTs, putting them at a disadvantage when it comes to admissions.
But do test optional policies work? Are these universities actually enrolling – and graduating – more low-income students and students of color?
If you ask Bob Schaeffer, executive director of FairTest, “You don’t [need to] argue about whether test optional works. You can show it works.”
Schaeffer and his organization have been tracking the test optional movement since the early 2000s. He described its recent growth as “quite rapid.” Originally adopted by mission-driven private liberal arts colleges, an “explosion” of public universities stopped requiring standardized tests in the last five years. The movement has also spread out geographically. Once limited to an enclave of schools in the Northeast, it’s since reached the mid-Atlantic states and the Midwest with some outposts on the West Coast.
He thinks this is in part because admissions officers are finding evidence that test optional policies draw more diverse applicants, and they’re sharing their successes with each other.
