While proponents of test-optional policies argue that standardized testing benefits the wealthy — often citing expensive test preparation services and tutors — the reality is that every aspect of the college application process is manipulated by wealth. Essays can be professionally edited; extracurricular profiles can be embellished and financed. Yet the SAT and ACT provide a unique element of fairness: all students take the tests under the same conditions and are evaluated by the same standards, arguably making this portion of the admissions process the most equitable. Dartmouth’s study found that extracurriculars and essays — factors weighed heavily in test-optional admissions — had no predictive value on future academic success and disproportionately benefited wealthy students.
Rather than create a more equitable testing environment, a test-optional policy has dissuaded low-income students from taking standardized college entrance exams at all. In its 2023 SAT Suites of Assessments Final Report, the College Board found that students from families making less than $53,000 per year comprised just 11 percent of testers in 2023, while in 2016, students from families making less than $40,000 per year made up nearly 30 percent of testers. But less advantaged students don’t just take standardized tests less frequently; many, as Dartmouth found, had scores that would’ve qualified them for admission that they chose not to submit. According to Dartmouth’s dean of admissions, these students were often rejected when they may have been accepted if they reported their scores.
At the opposite end of the debate, studies have found that requiring students to take standardized tests — not necessarily submit them — leads to positive outcomes. An economist at Harvard studied the state of Michigan, where free standardized tests were not only provided to all students but required. She found that “For every 1,000 students who scored high enough to attend a selective college before testing was universal, another 230 high scorers were revealed by the new policy.” While programs like QuestBridge, which aims to connect promising low-income students to top colleges, offer critical support to motivated low-income students, there are few mechanisms that identify talent within students who don’t recognize their own potential. A universal test could bridge this gap, helping disadvantaged students uncover their full abilities.
Finally, the achievement gap between low and high-income students on the SAT/ACT highlights a deeper issue: our classist education system fundamentally fails to provide equal opportunities for all students. The real solution lies in improving how we support students from the very beginning and standardized test scores remain the key measure for evaluating the effectiveness of those improvements. As noted in a letter signed by 12 NAACP members, “data obtained through standardized tests are particularly important to the civil rights community because they are the only available, consistent, and objective source of data on disparities in educational outcomes…abolishing the tests or undermining their validity only makes it harder to identify and address the deep-rooted issues in our schools.”
Moreover, the impact of a post-affirmative action admissions process coupled with FAFSA challenges is already being felt at Pomona. This application season, Black student enrollment dropped by nearly 50 percent, while Latino enrollment rates stagnated. The reality is that a race-blind, test-optional admissions process tends to favor wealthy applicants who can afford to submit polished essays and cultivate impressive extracurricular profiles. Without affirmative action, standardized testing policies can serve as an important safeguard for low-income students and students of color.
Pomona’s decision to extend its test-optional policy is misguided. Other Claremont Colleges should consider a smarter approach. The SAT and ACT aren’t perfect, but in a sea of subjective measures, they remain the best way to identify talented students who can succeed in college. To make college admissions more equitable, we should test more, not less. And while standardized tests shouldn’t be the centerpiece of students’ applications, reinstating testing requirements and making tests more affordable and accessible — along with resources to prepare for them — would hold each candidate to a fair, baseline standard.
Eric Lu PO ‘28 is a Politics major from Salt Lake City, Utah.
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