The COVID-19 pandemic upended the college admissions process, with many schools deciding to temporarily eliminate requirements that students submit standardized test scores. Colleges and universities found themselves conducting an impromptu experiment with test-optional admissions, a policy long called for by those who say that the SAT and ACT unfairly disadvantage students from under-represented minority groups. Now, after two years of wide-spread test-optional admissions, data is beginning to emerge, and it shows that these policies have been an important aspect of admissions decision-making for minority students.
An EAB survey of almost 5,000 students who graduated high school in 2021 has found that test-optional policies were a significant factor in motivating students to apply, with 15% saying that they applied to a college specifically because it was test-optional. But test-optional policies were particularly influential for under-represented minorities, with 24% of Black students and 21% of Hispanic/Latinx students saying that they had applied to a school for that reason. Whites and Asians applied because of test-optional policies at much lower rates, 12% and 15%, respectively.
According to Madeleine Rhyneer, vice president of consulting services and dean of enrollment management for EAB, which consults with colleges on enrollment management, going test-optional broadcasts an appealing message to students from under-represented groups.
“I think that removing what some students believe to be a barrier to them, a thing that they're not sure is absolutely fair to them, sent a strong signal [that] ‘We welcome students who have come from historically disadvantaged groups on our campus and we're not going to use test scores as a method of exclusion,’” she said.
If the pattern shown by the data continues, colleges and universities may be more inclined to make test-optional policies permanent, according to Dr. Darrell Lovell, an assistant professor in the Terry B. Rogers College of Education and Social Sciences at West Texas A&M University who has written about the expansion of these policies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
