With the early application deadline of 1 November approaching, college admissions is top of mind for millions of 12th-grade students and their parents in the US. Unfortunately for them, the rolling back over recent years of the requirement for applicants to submit standardised test scores means that the whole process is more confusing ¨C and risky ¨C than ever.?

Since the pandemic, most colleges haven¡¯t required students to submit an SAT or ACT score to apply. These ¡°test-optional¡± colleges, however, are silent about the fact that standardised tests are a good measure of probable student outcomes. Academically unprepared students, as measured by test scores, are substantially??than others to switch to easier majors that typically pay less later in life, even as they take on the same (or a greater) amount of student loan debt ¨C which is difficult to discharge, even through bankruptcy.?

For example, according to??of University of California students, only 4.2 per cent of those admitted to STEM programmes with SAT scores in the bottom quarter managed to graduate in a STEM major within four years.

Colleges should clearly show what percentage of students who applied in previous years submitted test scores, what percentage were admitted without test scores, what those scores were, and what the academic?outcomes?were by test scores and intended major. This would help families decide whether to submit test scores and whether a student with a particular score will likely succeed in a given major at that college.

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If that likelihood is low, the family may take the view that it isn¡¯t even worth paying the application fee and spending the time to apply to that college.?In the absence of such information, families cast a , wasting time and money on more applications than should be necessary, and often ending up with uncertain academic outcomes at the colleges to which they are ultimately admitted. Before admitting unprepared students into a rigorous major, a college should at least let them know what it already knows: they likely won¡¯t graduate in that major, especially not within four years.

Moreover, as educational institutions, all colleges?should?care about academic preparedness. And the fact that test scores add significant independent predictive value beyond high-school grades is demonstrated by ?covering millions of students, including a 2024? by researchers at Brown University and College. Brown and Dartmouth are also among the top colleges that have recently returned to requiring SAT and ACT; others include ,?,? and .

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In fact, standardised tests are??of success at highly selective colleges than a student¡¯s high school grades. As an SAT and ACT tutor who has taught hundreds of students over the course of thousands of hours, I see first-hand that those with significantly higher scores have acquired more verbal and mathematics skills and knowledge, which prepare them for not just admission but for academic success in college. This is not surprising: it is obvious.

But colleges evidently have higher priorities than doing the best job they can of determining the academic preparedness of the students they admit. Vanderbilt, for instance, tells students to submit an ACT score only if it is a 34 or above (equivalent to a 1,500 on the SAT). So even if you have a 33 (a top 2 per cent score), you¡¯re instructed not to submit it, but Vanderbilt still encourages you to apply. Why? Because a 33 would bring down Vanderbilt¡¯s SAT/ACT average ¨C and, therefore, bring down its ranking in the US News & World Report (which only requires only 50 per cent of students to be admitted with standardised test scores).

In other words, Vanderbilt ¨C and other colleges with similar practices ¨C would seemingly rather make admissions decisions with?less?information about whether admitted students are equipped to succeed than run the risk of lowering their average score. A huge ?who enrol in a four-year BA-granting university have an A average, yet top universities apparently do not want to be able to differentiate between A-average students with a 28 on the ACT and those with a 33.

A cynic might wonder if those test-optional colleges are also encouraging students to withhold test scores because they want to be able to admit the wealthiest ones among them, regardless of their level of preparedness. After all, if colleges used only SAT and ACT scores for admission, the evidence shows that the percentage of students at the most selective private colleges with parents in the top 1 per cent of income would be?. It is through the?non-academic factors, such as legacy preferences, that the wealthy gain their admissions advantage.

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Instead of trying to make themselves look good and filling their coffers, non-profits are tasked with operating in the public good. Colleges are non-profits. They should act like it.

is director of outreach for the?, a non-profit that works to support the appropriate use of testing in?admissions.