Stanford University announced Friday that it would reinstate the requirement to submit standardized test scores for undergraduate admissions, the latest in a small but growing number of elite colleges and universities to reinstate the practice after dropping it during the pandemic.
The change will take effect for the fall 2025 semester, and students seeking admission starting in fall 2026 will be required to submit SAT or ACT scores with their application. For students applying this fall to enroll next year, standardized test scores will remain optional.
Other selective schools that have again begun requiring such test scores in recent months include Harvard, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgetown, Purdue, California Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Austin.
Requiring test scores became unpopular during the pandemic as exam dates were canceled during lockdowns and critics expressed concern that standardized tests exacerbate inequality. About 2,000 colleges across the country made submitting test scores optional on applications, at least temporarily, after the pandemic began.
In a statement explaining the move, Stanford officials said the faculty committee on undergraduate admissions had determined that test scores were “a significant predictor of academic success at Stanford.” But they said test scores would be “part of a comprehensive applicant review” that also takes into account factors such as academic record, career history and whether a student has worked or taken on family responsibilities.
Stanford's decision is broadly in line with other universities that have made similar decisions. Many have cited recent studies showing that test scores help predict how students will do in college and how likely they are to graduate and succeed after college. Grades are not that accurate as a predictor, researchers say, because problems such as grade inflation make it difficult to assess how well students are doing. Research also shows that standardized tests can help colleges identify low-income students and students of color who will thrive in the future.
But critics of the testing requirement say it favors students from wealthy families who can afford private tutors and test-prep classes, students whose first language is English, and students who perform better on tests. Others argue that test score requirements make the student body less diverse.
Anti-testing group Fair Testing argues that colleges should make test scores optional or not consider them at all in admissions decisions.
“What the SAT, and standardized tests in general, capture best is whether you come from a background that is on the winning side of the existing meritocracy of birth,” FairTest said in a recent report.
While several universities around the country have reinstated standardized test scores, Stanford's rival across the gulf, the University of California, Berkeley, is unlikely to reinstate required scores anytime soon.
Students sued the University of California system in December 2019 over the test score requirement, making similar claims that the tests were unfair to some students. The University of California Board of Regents voted to drop the requirement in May 2020, but a judge ruled further later that year, saying the university system must prohibit campuses from considering the scores in admissions tests at all.
The California State University system also dropped testing requirements in 2022.