Yale Reinstates ACT, SAT Requirements for Class of 2031

Colleges & Universities Yale University
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Yale is the latest school to reinstate test requirements.

First-year and transfer applicants to Yale College will be required to submit either their SAT or ACT scores beginning this fall.

The change, which Yale announced in a Wednesday evening press release after updating its webpage on standardized testing, reinstates a pre-pandemic mandate after six admissions cycles in which SAT and ACT score submissions were not required. Yale axed the requirement for undergraduate applicants to submit standardized test scores in 2020, then required the submission of either SAT, ACT, International Baccalaureate or Advanced Placement scores under a test-flexible policy beginning in 2024.

https://yaledailynews.com/articles/yale-reinstates-sat-act-requirement-after-six-years-of-flexible-policy

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Just to be clear, they had previously reinstated a more flexible testing policy, where you could use things like APs or IBs. I guess they found that experiment didn’t work out how they were hoping.

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I just checked their most recent CDS

in C9.
71% reporteded SAT
27% ACT

much ado about nothing IMO (this is even higher than the article says!)

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Yale requires submission of test scores after acceptance. So while 98% eventually submitted scores, there may be a few additional % that did not submit them as part of their application.

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Do you think those percentages can be added, so 98? Seems like a no.

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We don’t know that. We do know that at least 71% did, and probably higher. An unknown percentage submitted both.

But yeah, IMO, the news is a big nothing burger

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I agree from what we know there are in fact people who submit both, so there were very likely more than 2% who submitted neither an SAT nor an ACT (so presumably only APs or IBs).

A lot more, though? Probably not. And in fact we don’t know they all wouldn’t have been admitted if required to submit an SAT/ACT.

So I agree this probably isn’t going to make a huge difference in future outcomes.

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According to the linked article and Yale, it was 90% in fall 2025 class – https://admissions.yale.edu/resource/download/117 .

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I agree: 90% was in the article and will be most accurate.

I initially read the CDS instructions wrong and thought it included only the test they used for evaluation, and assumed (knowing it was an assumption) Yale would only include one or other…..

Regarldess 90% is VERY high, so I think this is still a very small change to policy in practice….they can still ignore low scores for candidates if they want…

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Possibly. Looking at other schools CDS submissions, there are some that add up extremely close to 100%. There are others (such as U Florida = 120%) where clearly they are counting both categories for some students. The CDS excel spreadsheet used to gather the data is not specific on the topic.