Yes though I think it was Yale that adopted test flexible rather than Harvard. Maybe it was both though.
Yes though schools like Oxford do require certain AP tests for certain subjects and also recommend certain tests ie. for their math programs I believe they require AP Calc BC and recommend AP Physics C, AP Computer Science A and some others as the other two though they do take other AP tests in lieu of these so the recommended is not equivalent to the US recommended which should normally be read as requirements for most students.
Yes, Yale is flexible but they want scores from 11th grade or external exams with results before application date (so, a November test date for IB would work for someone applying RD). Unless they changed it recently, predicted results didn’t work.
I may be mistaken wrt Harvard because as of now I haven’t got an applicant in the pipeline so I’m just memorizing the different changes but didn’t look it up.
US colleges would have to modify the UK version, but something could be done with this system for students in the AP system.
For US applicants, Harvard is not test flexible. For international applicants with zero access to SAT, they will accept other options. So basically, UK students need SAT
Neither Harvard nor Yale accept predicted scores as meeting the requirements
Yes that’s a change that seems to be new for CMU but I’m not sure predicted scores work well in the current system. I’m a bit familiar with the UK system which usually makes conditional offers predicated on students meeting certain scores. When students do not meet the conditional offer, their offer can be withdrawn so many students will put down their top choice then a second choice called insurance I believe, which has a lower offer. If they meet their top choice offer all is well. If they fail to meet the top choice, their scores will hopefully allow them to meet the conditional offer of the insurance college and if they don’t manage to make both, then they can look at the schools that still have places through something called clearing I believe.
For US students, this is why Oxford is usually the preferred school over Cambridge because often students will have 3 AP scores while it’s harder to have 5 by 11th grade. However, more importantly with Cambridge, courses that require testing has testing occur quite late while Oxford’s tests are in the fall and the interviews usually conducted in early December. US students will therefore usually get an offer from Oxford in January that is unconditional while with Cambridge the testing isn’t usually don’t until spring (May maybe June?) and so results of the test aren’t known until August. It’s possible for a US student with a conditional offer not meeting the conditional requirements and then suddenly having no place to go. This also hold with their predicted IB scores as some students find out only in the summer that they don’t meet the scores set in their conditional offer. What if the US student doesn’t meet the CMU threshold? Will CMU withdraw their offer? That might be fine for international students who may have other options but what about US students because most schools expect students to accept/decline by sometime in May. If US students are waiting to make sure they make the grades, then they might hold on to one of their acceptances just in case and this will have a cascading effect on wait lists etc. The UK system can work for these situations as I outlined but the current US system is ill-equipped to handle issues with predicted grades.
Oxford has many of their own admissions tests in addition to the core ACT/SAT/AP requirements for US applicants. Performance on those tests can be the difference maker in getting shortlisted for interview. Having APs in hand at the time of application is also helpful for US students as it shows their ability to perform on that kind of year long material exam. Having Calc BC, Physics C (both) and CS-A 5s in hand certainly helped my son’s Oxford admissions process.
Yes this is why I said that the Oxford testing occurs in the fall and then candidates are shortlisted for interviews which occurs around early December. Thus Oxford students will know if they are accepted and if they already have 3 AP test scores with a score of 5, their offer will be unconditional. This is unlike Cambridge because even if a student has 5 AP test scores with a 5, the Cambridge subject tests do not occur until spring so a student can meet all the requirements and then fall short and find out they have nowhere to go unless they accepted one admission as a personal insurance policy.
I’m going to post the news about WPI going from test blind back to test optional, because their findings are interesting, and could be applicable to other schools. Specifically, they said going from test optional to test blind did not increase apps from disadvantaged (they used the word ‘diverse’) students, and may have decreased apps from international students. Personally, I’m not surprised they found little difference in apps from disadvantaged students between test optional and test blind. IMO the real difference there would be between test required and test optional or test blind.
From 2021-2024, WPI piloted a “test-blind” admissions policy and did not accept applicants’ standardized test scores. This was due in part to the disruption to the administration of standardized testing caused by the pandemic and was coupled with the university’s desire to broaden access to a WPI education to talented students for whom the SAT or ACT was seen as a barrier to entry. Through the data collected, however, WPI found no significant increase in applications or enrollments of diverse students, and there seemed to be a decline among international students for whom standardized tests carry a greater weight and meaning. Therefore, WPI reverted to its prior practice and remains test optional.
Not surprising results, but their focus on who is applying emphasizes something that you know, but the mandatory test advocates insist on ignoring. The reason schools adopt test flexible or test blind policies is to attract qualified students who would not otherwise apply, because test required keeps qualified students from applying. Any analysis that ignores this is misrepresenting the heart of the issue.
Specific stats are pictured above. WPI’s categorization of BIPOC/ALANA include Asian students as an underrepresented group, as well as more traditional URMs. Asian students make up the largest component of the group. This non-White group had a sharp increase starting in class of 2018, but became more flat in 2021 when switching to test blind. International students had the opposite trend, with a sharp decrease in applicants starting in class of 2018, that became flat in 2021, after switching from test optional to test blind.
Switching from test optional to test blind began in Fall 2021. % non-White applicants and admits had a statistically significant increase during this period, but matriculating students did not. The admitted non-White students seem more likely to choose other colleges than in past. I suspect the key reason for this change is COVID. With nearly every other colleges being test optional, students with relatively lower test scores are more likely to have other options besides just WPI than in the past. And the report suggests WPI is perceived as being less desirable than those other options due to being test blind, instead of test optional. An example quote is below:
After 2018, it also looks like the BIPOC / ALANA group underyielded relative to overall at WPI. That seems to have started before test optional → test blind in 2021.
Charts showing the changes in numbers of students rather than percentages are below. There are obviously other factors influencing the demographic trends than just the switch from test optional to test blind, which makes it unclear how much impact the switch to test blind is having on demographics.
For ALANA, the increase in applications starts in 2018 and whatever changed in 2018 to cause ALANA applications to increase more than other demographics seems to persist after switching to test blind.
For international, the decrease in applications also starts in 2018, but whatever changed in 2018 seems to stop after switching to test blind. However, that doesn’t mean that test blind must have been the cause of this international application trend reversal. A lot of other things changed at this time such as COVID, the vast majority of peer colleges no longer requiring test scores, WPI introducing binding ED to improve yield, WPI plummeting in USNWR rankings (dropped from 63 in 2022, to 67 in 2023, to 82 in 2024, to 86 in 2025), changes in FA and merit scholarships, supreme court ruling (note the change in trend for admits in Fall 2024)… Or it may primarily relate to different recruiting efforts.
Adding that said criteria will vary by school, and may even vary from year to year. For now, the vast majority of four year colleges will continue to not require tests for the reasons that we’ve talked about on this thread ad nauseam.
Yes, it is not only possible, it is commonplace for a wide variety of schools to identify qualified students without requiring tests. This is something that the test advocates refuse to accept.
Note that “qualified”, if defined as being able to do the work and graduate, is a much lower bar than “competitive for admission” at most highly selective colleges (the few exceptions would those like Caltech where the general education requirements for all are extremely rigorous). Of course, “competitive for admission” does depend on the admission criteria used and how they are evaluated.
That is because the overwhelming majority of colleges and universities accept just about all of their applicants. That is beyond argument. The most selective universities see tremendous value in standardized tests, hence the title of this thread.
People don’t come to this site and ask how they can possibly get into Wayne State or Ole Miss.
And in addition to ZRT’s point- you can’t compare a typical public U which accepts an overwhelming percentage of their applicants to the Stanford/Harvard/Dartmouth’s of the world (just to use the verbiage of the thread’s title) because the educational offerings at that “typical” public U are SO much broader than at a place like Dartmouth.
A middling student (average grades, average rigor) at that “typical” public U may or may not be ready for the freshman year curriculum in mechanical engineering or philosophy. And that’s just fine, because that student can major in early childhood education or Public Relations or health studies and graduate perfectly capable of performing as a Pre-K teacher, social media marketing assistant or getting in to grad school to become an occupational therapist. But Dartmouth doesn’t have that option.
So distinguishing between the “I am the Val at a HS where they give academic credit for working on the yearbook” vs. “I am the Val at a HS with strong rigor, exceptional instruction, and very hard classes” is important to Dartmouth and not that important at typical public U. If the student can’t hack Calculus at typical public U they can take “Concepts in Statistics” to fulfill their math distribution requirement and then find a major which takes advantage of their strengths without requiring remedial work.
Despite to your cherry-picked, misleading examples, it is “beyond argument” that there are many excellent, highly competitive schools that are test optional or test blind.
And, yes, there are other excellent schools that have chosen, for a variety of reasons, to return to requiring tests. Doing so will cost them capable applicants who do not apply because of the test requirement. These will often be the same students that colleges claim they are trying to attract.
@blossom, if your post was directed to me, I just want to point out that I didn’t make the comparison you are suggesting. There are excellent, selective schools (as or more selective as Dartmouth) are test optional or test blind.
