For Harvard and CalTech, admission tests are back

Harvard University will reinstate standardized testing as a requirement of admission, the school announced Thursday, becoming the latest in a series of highly competitive universities to reverse their test-optional policies.

Students applying to enter Harvard in the fall of 2025 and beyond will be required to submit SAT or ACT scores, although the university said a few other test scores will be accepted in “exceptional cases,” including Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate tests. The university had previously said it was going to keep its test-optional policy through the entering class of fall 2026.

Within hours of Harvard’s announcement, CalTech, a science and engineering institute in Pasadena, Calif., also said it was reinstating its testing requirements for students applying for admission in the fall of 2025.

The schools were among nearly 2,000 colleges across the country that dropped test-score requirements over the past few years, a trend that escalated during the pandemic when it was harder for students to get to test sites.

Harvard and CalTech join a growing number of schools, notable for their selectivity, that have since reversed their policies.

Dropping test-score requirements was widely viewed as a tool to help diversify admissions by encouraging poor and underrepresented students who had potential but did not score well on the tests to apply. But supporters of the tests have said without scores, it became harder to identify promising students who outperformed in their environments.

In explaining its decision to accelerate the return to testing, Harvard cited a study by Opportunity Insights, which found test scores were a better predictor of academic success in college than high school grades and they can help admissions officers identify highly talented students from low-income groups who might otherwise have gone unnoticed.