Dartmouth College Will Again Require SAT, ACT Scores for Admissions

SAT preparation books are seen on a shelf at a bookstore in San Francisco, Calif., on Aug. 26, 2003. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Dartmouth College will once again require prospective students to submit an SAT or ACT score to be considered for admission, making it the first Ivy League school to reactivate such requirement after going test-optional during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decision will overturn the test-optional admission policy that was first instituted in June 2020, when nearly all colleges and universities in the United States dropped their testing requirements as widespread lockdowns forced test sites—the vast majority of which are public high schools—to shut their doors to test takers.

“At the time, we imagined the resulting ’test-optional' policy as a short-term practice rather than an informed commentary on the role of testing in our holistic evaluation process,” Dartmouth said Monday in an announcement of the change.

Almost four years later, the college said it has found clear evidence to justify bringing standardized testing back into its admission process, beginning with the Class of 2029.

“For Dartmouth, the evidence supporting our reactivation of a required testing policy is clear,” the college said.

“Our bottom line is simple: we believe a standardized testing requirement will improve—not detract from—our ability to bring the most promising and diverse students to our campus,” it told the campus community.

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To further explain the decision, the college pointed to an internal study commissioned by Dartmouth President Sian Beilock and conducted by a team of Dartmouth professors in economics and educational sociology. Using the latest data, the faculty researchers concluded that high school grades paired with standardized testing are “the most reliable indicators” of whether a student can succeed at the elite New Hampshire school.

“In short, consideration of SAT scores allows Admissions to identify applicants who will thrive academically at Dartmouth better than does the use of high school GPA alone,” the authors wrote.

The internal study also suggested that test scores are particularly helpful in identifying high achievers from low and middle-income backgrounds, who may “attend high schools for which Dartmouth has less information to interpret the transcripts”—a conclusion the college called “unexpected, thought-provoking, and encouraging.”

“We’re getting more and more applications from all around the world, and so in order to find high achieving students, test scores turn out to be a really helpful tool,” one of the study’s authors, economics professor Bruce Sacerdote, told student newspaper The Dartmouth. “Our analysis shows that we potentially miss out on some great applicants when we don’t have [test scores].”

According to the professor, there were certain cases in which the applicant opted not to send their scores when the scores could have “helped that student tremendously, maybe tripling their chance of admissions.”

“That’s why testing is so helpful to less advantaged students because when admissions sees, ‘Wow, this student is really excelling in a less than perfect environment,’ that can be a very strong signal for that candidate,” Mr. Sacerdote said.

Elite Colleges Mixed on COVID-Era Waivers

In the face of nationwide pandemic lockdowns, most U.S. colleges and universities suspended their testing requirements. Then, as the pandemic continued, many of them extended their policies for another year or longer.

While it initially seemed like the Ivy League would soon return to requiring test scores, Harvard University has extended its test-optional admissions policy for applicants through the Class of 2030, according to the school’s website. The University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Yale, and Brown Universities have all waived testing requirements through the 2023-24 admissions cycles. Cornell University has extended its test-optional policy to Fall 2025 applicants.

Meanwhile, in March 2023, Columbia University became the first Ivy League school to permanently waive the testing requirement.

However, the past years have also seen a revival of SAT score requirements at several prestigious institutions, including Georgetown University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Stuart Schmill, MIT’s dean of admissions and student financial services, said in 2022 that taking SAT and ACT scores—especially math scores—into consideration “significantly improves” the school’s ability to accurately predict whether a student can do well at MIT.

While MIT’s admission officials can’t explain exactly why those scores are so predictive of a student’s academic performance, they believe it is likely because of the school’s heavy emphasis on math. All MIT students, regardless of intended major, must complete a series of very demanding math and math-based science courses and pass long, challenging exams in order to advance.

For example, an economics degree at MIT requires at least one course in econometrics; and a philosophy degree at MIT usually entails courses in set theory, modal logic, and paradox and infinity.

“In other words, there is no path through MIT that does not rest on a rigorous foundation in mathematics, and we need to be sure our students are ready for that as soon as they arrive,” Mr. Schmill said.