Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, hundreds of colleges have stopped requiring high school seniors to submit SAT or ACT scores with their applications. More than 1,600 colleges and universities—or two-thirds of the nation’s four-year schools—are now “test-optional,” including Ivy League schools like Harvard and Brown and flagship state schools like the University of Michigan. About 80 colleges, including the entire University of California system, have even gone “test-blind,” meaning they won’t consider test scores at all.
These dramatic shifts are an apparent victory for advocates who’ve long argued college entrance exams disadvantage low-income and minority applicants who can’t afford expensive test prep and fees for multiple exams. Standardized testing “limit[s] educational equity and block[s] access to higher education for otherwise qualified students,” as the nonprofit FairTest says on its site. 
Anne Kim
But it’s already clear that ending college admissions testing is an imperfect solution for achieving higher education equity. In a recent study of selective colleges that adopted test-optional policies between 2005-2006 and 2015-2016, the share of Black, Latino and Native American students at those schools grew by a scant one percent.
This is not to say high-stakes testing should continue unscrutinized or that its role in perpetuating systemic inequities should be dismissed. By itself, however, test-optional admissions will fail to promote diversity at America’s colleges, especially at elite institutions. In some scenarios, low-income and minority applicants could end up faring worse, depending on the metrics schools adopt in lieu of test scores to weigh their applicants’ relative merits.
Emphasizing extracurriculars, for instance, would heavily favor affluent students whose parents can afford to pay for sports, music lessons and unpaid internships in exotic locales. College admissions officers also say that “grades in college prep courses” and “strength of curriculum” are among the top three factors they consider in making admissions decisions, according to a 2019 survey by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling. This, too, tilts the field toward wealthier students.
A shockingly large share of low-income students don’t have access to college-preparatory classes, like the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) program. While 40 percent of “high poverty”—disproportionately minority—high schools offered no AP classes in 2018, according to government data, nearly 70 percent of affluent, “low poverty” schools offered at least 11 AP classes. More than a quarter offered 20.
