Yale Reinstates Standardized Test Scores for Admissions

Yale University will once again require prospective students to submit standardized test scores after making tests optional for the past four years.

The reinstated requirement, which affects students applying this fall for the class of 2029, makes Yale the second Ivy League school after Dartmouth College to bring standardized tests back after a pandemic-related hiatus. In a departure from past practice, however, Yale said Thursday it will be “test-flexible” by accepting not only the SAT and ACT exams, but scores from the International Baccalaureate as well as Advanced Placement exams.

The New Haven, Conn., school made the decision after it found that standardized test scores from all four of the exams were more predictive of academic success than high school grades. 

The school cited its internal data as well as a study that found that students with the same high school GPA earned significantly higher grades during their freshman year in college if they scored 1600 on the SAT as compared with 1200.

The study, by faculty from Dartmouth and Brown University and published in January by Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights research center, also found that students who didn’t submit an SAT or ACT score earned lower college grades at elite schools. Dartmouth cited the same research in its decision earlier this month to reinstate standardized tests.

{snip}

Yale dropped its test-score requirement in 2020 during the pandemic, along with more than a thousand other colleges. 

{snip}