In the wake of the overturning of affirmative action by the Supreme Court, all aspects of the college admissions process were placed under greater scrutiny. The Supreme Court’s decision blocks colleges from consciously building a racially diverse class, and, as a result, it is more important than ever that Harvard examine its metrics for admission to build diversity in the areas it legally can—namely, economic diversity.
One of the most historically important (and controversial) aspects of the admissions process is standardized testing. As Dartmouth has become the first Ivy to reinstate SAT/ACT scores for admission, it is time for Harvard to likewise re-evaluate its test-optional policy, which currently extends until 2030.
The SAT and ACT have become a scapegoat for all manner of societal ills—most notably, for being discriminatory against Black, brown, and low-income students. However, this rhetoric is misguided—it blames a test which registers systemic gaps in education along economic and racial lines for the inequality itself. Students confront these standardized tests with over a decade of educational imbalance, and critics of these metrics claim that the differences in scores originate primarily from the test itself. In fact, taking variations into account according to the student’s background and opportunity is far easier to do in standardized scores than for GPA or extracurriculars. As Raj Chetty, a Harvard economist at the forefront of standardized test research, put it, “disparities in SAT score are a symptom, not a cause, of inequality in the U.S.”
It is easy to see how the SAT and ACT became so villainized. For those of us who submitted SAT or ACT scores to college, the hours spent combing through practice exams are indelibly tattooed into our memories. With hundreds of nervous students packed into a gymnasium, No. 2 pencils and TI-84 calculators at the ready, the tension (and B.O.) was palpable. These stressful tests transitioned from being an unhappy memory for students to seemingly becoming a symbol of the lack of diversity in race and economic backgrounds among elite colleges.
However, the opposite is true: although students from higher-income families can afford to hire test prep tutors, test scores can be manipulated far less by wealth than other admissions metrics. In fact, impressive extracurriculars, such as out-of-state debate tournaments, scientific research with a professor, and music lessons are much more dependent on attending prestigious high schools and having well-connected or wealthy parents. College essays, likewise, involve a weeks or even monthslong writing process in which the essays can be rewritten and polished by parents or professional college consultants. Standardized tests are—to some extent—more immune to the scramble of wealthy parents racing to perfect their child’s Common App. At the end of the day, in the testing room, it’s just students facing down Scantron sheets.
Without these tests, schools rely heavily on high school GPA as a metric for future academic success. However, research from Opportunity Insights shows that the SAT and ACT are more accurate indicators of success in college than GPA. Test scores are a stronger predictor of college grades, attending an elite graduate school, or working at a prestigious firm than high school grades. Moreover, regardless of whether students attended a disadvantaged or advantaged high school, the correlation between testing results and college grades remains unchanged.
Additionally, the emphasis on GPA might harm students from under-resourced high schools, as high GPAs from relatively unknown high schools are far harder for admissions officers to evaluate than a 4.0 from Exeter or Andover. With standardized tests, however, admissions officers can factor in the student’s background by reading the score “in context,” considering factors such as the rate of college matriculation at the student’s high school, the average SAT score in the local neighborhood, and the candidate’s own first-generation or low-income status.
Keeping these tests merely optional is insufficient in identifying students from less advantaged backgrounds. A Dartmouth study found that many less-advantaged students withhold test scores for fear they are below the college mean, when these test scores may be beneficial in admissions when considered alongside the local norms of students’ high schools and neighborhoods.
In an interview with the Independent, Richard Weissbourd, Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and director of the Making Caring Common Project, agreed that the war on standardized tests was misguided, and that “the data seems to be showing that the SAT finds the strengths of less advantaged students.” However, Weissbourd noted that though “reviving [the] SAT can capture some of those [less-advantaged] students,” Harvard should seek to revamp its entire admissions process to focus more on threshold tests and student writing samples. In his capacity as the director of the Making Caring Common Project, a national organization centered on changing college admissions, he recently met with the Common App to discuss the development of these new metrics. Weissbourd said, in light of the Supreme Court decision, this is a “critical juncture, a watershed moment, as we’re going to see after this admissions cycle, whether colleges become significantly less diverse, and if they did, I think there will be a lot of momentum for creating fair and more equitable admissions practices.”
Hopefully, Harvard is spurred to reimagine its admissions process, but the timeline for developing such metrics is slow and uncertain. In the meantime, Harvard is dismissing a valuable tool for identifying less-advantaged students. The current attitude of treating the SAT and ACT as socioeconomic or racial inequality incarnate is not only wrong, but it’s detracting from the very goal critics of the SAT seek: college as a greater tool for social mobility.
Kate Kadyan ’26 (katekadyan@college.harvard.edu) doesn’t look back fondly at the ACT but feels strongly about this issue nonetheless.
Editor’s note: Since the writing of this article, Yale has become the second Ivy League school to reinstate mandatory standardized testing in their college admissions process.