As loyal readers of Ivy Coach’s college admissions blog know all too well, we don’t believe “test-optional” policies are especially meaningful. All else being equal, a student who doesn’t submit test scores won’t have the same chance at earning admission to a “test-optional” school as a student who submits excellent scores — irrespective of what the admissions officers at those universities may tell you to the contrary. And yet, many of these same admissions officers get all flummoxed if you suggest they’re not telling it like it is. Well, they aren’t telling it like it is. They never have been telling it like it is.

It’s why Brown University announced today that it would require applicants to submit an SAT or ACT score. It’s why, a couple of weeks ago, Yale University announced that students would be required to submit SAT, ACT, AP, or IB scores. It’s why, a month ago, Dartmouth College announced its own return to requiring an SAT or ACT score. It’s why Georgetown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been requiring candidates to submit an SAT or ACT score since soon after the pandemic subsided. 

And it’s not like the signs weren’t there all along. As a case in point, let’s zero in on the University of Michigan’s “test-optional” policy that appeared on its website just a few years back.

Michigan’s “Test-Optional” Admissions Policy

On its website, in 2020, Michigan’s admissions office wrote, “The COVID19 pandemic continues to create unique challenges for students. For the 2020-21 application cycle, students who are unable to provide standardized test scores are encouraged to apply and will not be disadvantaged in the application process. Applications will be reviewed with the information a student is able to provide.” 

In short, like almost all elite universities, Michigan was “test-optional” that year — and the school remains test-optional in 2024. Michigan stated on its website that students who didn’t submit test scores would not be disadvantaged. So college applicants should have believed them then and they should believe them now, right?

Michigan Has Asked Students Who Don’t Submit Scores to Explain Why

No, and don’t just take our word for it. Take Michigan’s word for it. In an email that same admissions cycle to high school students, Michigan’s admissions office wrote, “If you have not taken the SAT or ACT or are unable to, or do not have other scores to submit, you should use the COVID-19 question on the application to explain. You can self-report your test results on your application OR have them submitted electronically directly from the testing agency.”

Our translation? Everyone is suffering during the pandemic. Everyone had difficulty with testing this year. But unless you provide us with an excellent excuse for not submitting testing, you will be at a distinct disadvantage. In fact, you will have to reserve the optional Covid-19 essay to explain yourself.

“Test-Optional” Has Always Been Nonsense

During the height of the pandemic, we at Ivy Coach were attacked by keyboard trolls on the National Association for College Admission Counseling listserv for essentially deeming test-optional admissions policies not worth the paper they were written on.

But the writing was on the wall the whole time. It’s just that only some schools put such a lousy PR spin on the policy, as did Michigan. But all of these schools were guilty of talking out of two sides of their mouths — touting that students with no scores would be at no disadvantage yet clearly disadvantaging them in the process. The growing list of schools that have returned to testing requirements in the admissions process only further substantiates the argument we’ve made from atop our soapbox all these years: test-optional policies are malarkey.