Columbia Admits SAT Scores Are ‘Useful Indicator’ Of Student Ability, Reinstates Mandatory Test Policy

By Lucy Spence

The last Ivy League college holding out on the COVID-era standardized test-optional policy caved Friday when Columbia University announced that, after a multi-year review, it recognized test scores as a “useful indicator” of student abilities.

Columbia scrapped its previously permanent test-optional policy and reinstated mandatory test scores (SAT/ACT) from all students applying to Columbia College or Columbia Engineering. The updated policy will take effect in August 2027, according to the Ivy League institution.

First-year or transfer students applying to Columbia’s Barnard College or the School of General Studies, which includes non-traditional students in dual degree programs or those with interrupted studies, are not required to submit test scores. (RELATED: University Set To Charge Students Nearly Six Figures Per Year)

Columbia announced a test-optional policy in 2020 after COVID-19, becoming the second Ivy to do so. It extended the optional admissions policy in 2023 “with no stated end date,” according to the Office of Public Affairs. “Through a multi-year faculty review, it was determined that test scores, among other factors, were a useful indicator of potential student success,” the college wrote Friday.

Columbia’s admissions page notes that standardized test scores are “one of many elements” used to evaluate applicants. “Our process is purposeful, considering individual circumstances and opportunity in order to best determine an applicant’s suitability for admission and ability to thrive in and contribute to our curriculum and our community,” the website notes.

Columbia is the last of the Ivies to abandon its test-optional policies. All eight have returned to mandatory testing, with Princeton implementing its policy change for the 2027-2028 admissions cycle. Yale was the latest Ivy to announce its policy change in late May.

Columbia’s switch follows a broader return among educators to standardized forms of evaluating student applicants. A May open letter written by STEM faculty at the University of California (UC) pleaded with administrators to reimplement mandatory mathematical standardized testing, after professors warned of “preparation gaps so severe that instructors must re-teach middle school mathematics.”

The letter has now reached nearly 1,500 signatures, including seven of the nine UC mathematical department chairs. (RELATED: ‘Fail Our Children’: New Data Shows Just How Badly Student Learning Suffered As Schools Doubled Down On DEI)

Faculty at the University of California are begging for the return of standardized tests in admissions. After the University of California stopped considering SAT scores, student quality fell significantly, and admitted students were unable to do basic math. The University of California now admits students from low-quality high schools at a much higher rate than students from high-quality high schools, where grading is more rigorous.

Other Ivy League schools “brought back” the requirement that students submit SAT or ACT scores, “after they had ditched it in part by arguing the tests advance systemic race inequity,” reported The College Fix.

As Yale University noted, “research from before and after the pandemic has consistently demonstrated that, among all application components, test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future Yale grades.” In short, “testing complements a student’s existing accomplishments and can offer additional relevant information in our comprehensive and holistic admission process.”

Standardized tests are not racially unfair, and are essential to assess whether students can do basic math needed in college. As University of California faculty explained, the “SAT/ACT mathematics requirement is not an obstacle to equity; rather it is a prerequisite for it. Failing to measure preparation gaps does not remove barriers; it moves them into the classroom, where they become harder to overcome.” (Standardized tests do not stack the deck against minorities: they do not underpredict the performance of black and brown students).

Last year, the University of Pennsylvania announced it would once again consider standardized test results in admissions, after University of Pennsylvania researchers found that considering both standardized test scores and grades does a better job in predicting student success than only considering grades.

Reacting to colleges’ decisions, Jeremy Wayne Tate, the founder of the Classic Learning Test, observes that “after a few years of being test-optional, colleges have discovered that GPA alone is inadequate to predict college success. Grading varies wildly between different schools whereas a standardized test allows colleges to compare apples to apples.”