On Friday, Jan. 24, Claremont McKenna College (CMC) faculty recommended ending test optional admission. As the Board of Trustees adjourns this spring to make a final decision, I want to remind the institution of the importance of a test-optional policy.
When applying to top colleges, I knew I wasn’t just going up against my peers. I was going against a system that favored privilege.
Growing up in a one-room apartment in Queens, New York, I understand the first-hand challenges of navigating the U.S. education system. My family, having immigrated from South Korea, worked tirelessly to provide for me, but college prep wasn’t something we had the luxury to afford. I didn’t have access to expensive tutors, expert college counseling and the ability to take standardized tests multiple times. Instead, I studied late into the night, balancing school work with my passions, and I poured my all into excelling academically.
Test-optional policies allowed students like me to be seen for our potential, for the work we put in, and most importantly, for what we may contribute to the college. Without a test-optional policy, students like me, who have the ability but not the resources, would be unfairly judged by a flawed metric.
The controversial debate over standardized testing is not new. Over 1,000 four-year colleges and universities, including Ivy League schools and highly selective colleges like Pomona, have instituted test-optional policies. Now, as some institutions are returning to test-required policies, we must come to a quantitative answer: Does standardized testing measure merit, or does it reinforce systematic inequities?
The Claremont Independent Editorial Board has argued that standardized tests are the most objective metric in predicting college success, but this claim ignores substantial evidence demonstrating their flaws.
First, they referenced a Dartmouth study to argue that standardized scores are more predictive of academic performance in college and that it helps identify more high-achieving students. This study is incredibly context-specific. Dartmouth’s analysis relies on internal admissions data from an already selected applicant pool, meaning it doesn’t account for students who were dissuaded from applying by the barrier of standardized testing.
If standardized tests were truly a measure of student ability, there would be a clear difference between those who didn’t submit test scores — but the data tells a different story. A 2020 American Educational Research Journal analysis of 100,000 students across 28 test-optional U.S. universities found that students who didn’t submit standardized test scores performed just as well in college as those who did. It showed that high school GPA was a stronger predictor of college success than SAT or ACT scores, illustrating that standardized testing isn’t as effective a predictor as it is made out to be.
A landmark study from the University of Chicago found that after implementing the test-optional policy for the first time, first-year students performed at the same academic level as those who submitted test scores without reducing retention rates. Most importantly, the test-optional policy at UChicago led to a 24 percent increase in first-generation and low-income student enrollment. By eliminating test barriers, colleges were able to foster a more diverse applicant pool still able to excel at an elite institution.
Research conducted by Opportunity Insight indicates that standardized tests have a stronger correlation with total family income than with college success. In fact, “children of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans were 13 times likelier than the children of low-income families to score 1300 or higher on SAT/ACTs.” Likewise, the University of California System reports that requiring standardized testing largely eliminates high-achieving, low-income applicants.
By adopting test-optional policies, universities cultivate a more diverse applicant pool — regardless of financial privilege, everyone has a fair shot at higher education.
This isn’t objectivity, no matter how you spin it; when standardized test scores align more with socioeconomic status, they cease to be an objective measure of potential. Test-optional policies aren’t just about making college admissions more fair, they’re about making sure potential isn’t wasted due to circumstances beyond a student’s control.
Nonetheless, test-optional policies must also be instituted with a comprehensive and equitable process to evaluate students, particularly in light of grade inflation. If we truly care about a meritocracy, we must measure merit in ways that account for all paths to success.
Rather than going back to outdated barriers like test-required policies, colleges must work to strengthen holistic admissions through contextual data on student backgrounds and school profiles.
Application measures should focus more on real-world skills, lauding depths of engagement in activities or miles traveled, a metric weighing what barriers to education students have had to overcome. A high SAT or ACT score cannot possibly define the full context of a student’s lived experience.
I believe no admissions process is perfectly fair, but relying on a flawed metric like standardized testing won’t improve the system.
CMC and other institutions that are looking to go back to test-required policies can continue to uphold rigorous standards and prove that true academic excellence comes from expanding, not restricting, access. Now, more than ever, colleges must prioritize an equitable system that sees students for who they truly are, beyond test scores.
Daniel Han Tae Choi PO ’28 is an economics major and was wondering why you keep cutting him in line in the dining halls.
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