Harvard University announced Thursday it will return to requiring standardized testing for applications, nearly four years after it decided to make them optional.
The elite institution joins a movement from many other schools that have decided to return to testing as an application requirement after several years. Many of those schools have cited deflated academic achievement and opportunity from test-optional students in their decision to require tests such as the SAT or ACT in application packages once again.
Harvard’s class of 2029 will be the first since 2020 to be required to submit standardized test scores.
“Standardized tests are a means for all students, regardless of their background and life experience, to provide information that is predictive of success in college and beyond,” Hopi Hoekstra, the Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said in a statement. “When students have the option of not submitting their test scores, they may choose to withhold information that, when interpreted by the admissions committee in the context of the local norms of their school, could have potentially helped their application.”
“More information, especially such strongly predictive information, is valuable for identifying talent from across the socioeconomic range,” she added.
Despite the fact that many schools in 2020 decided to stop using standardized testing because academics were arguing that the testing requirements are inherently racist and disproportionally disadvantage non-white and lower-income prospects, Harvard pointed to research published last year showing the exact opposite.
Harvard economics professor and study co-author Raj Chetty said “critics correctly note that standardized tests are not an unbiased measure of students’ qualifications, as students from higher-income families often have greater access to test prep and other resources.”
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But Chetty noted that “the data reveal that other measures — recommendation letters, extracurriculars, essays — are even more prone to such biases. Considering standardized test scores is likely to make the admissions process at Harvard more meritocratic while increasing socioeconomic diversity.”
Harvard joins other elite schools such as Dartmouth College, Yale University, Georgetown University, Brown University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas at Austin in reinstating the requirement.