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Harvard will require test scores for admission again

Applicants to Harvard College will need to report their SAT or ACT scores again, reversing a pandemic-era policy of flexibility.

Dartmouth College, Yale and Brown universities announced similar changes in recent weeks, afterofficials cited data suggesting that SAT and ACT scores were the best predictors of students’ academic performance at their schools — and that making the tests optional could further disadvantage applicants from more challenging backgrounds. Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi Hoekstra said the tests are a means for all students, regardless of their background and life experience, to provide information predictive of success in college and beyond. “Indeed, when students have the option of not submitting their test scores,” Hoekstra said in a statement, “they may choose to withhold information that, when interpreted by the admissions committee in the context of the local norms of their school, could have potentially helped their application.

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