Inflection Point: Is Test-Optional the Future?

ABSTRACT

As the pandemic was grinding through nearly every facet of higher education, it also was forcing higher education institutions to find the answer to a key question that had been rattling around among colleges and universities for decades. What would college admission be like without the requirement that students submit scores on big national standardized tests? Out of necessity, institutions quickly found some answers to that multifaceted concern amid the height of the COVID-19 crisis. This fall, as normalcy further returns, many in higher education are now sifting through the data and anecdotal information from that period as they decide how to finetune new testing policies or, in some cases, reinstate previous policies requiring testing. That's all taking place while admission professionals counsel students who may be pleased by the new policies and feel more fairly assessed and free to apply at schools more broadly, but also may feel confused--and perhaps even suspicious.