Elite Admissions Shake-Up: Tests Return

Columbia University is walking back its COVID-era “no test” experiment and will again demand SAT or ACT scores, reopening the fight over merit in elite education.

Story Snapshot

Columbia will again require standardized test scores for freshman admissions starting with the 2027 cycle.
The school had gone “permanently” test-optional during the pandemic, saying non-submitters would face no disadvantage.
Typical Columbia students already score around 1510–1560 on the SAT or 34–36 on the ACT, showing how academic standards stayed sky high.
The reversal highlights a wider national clash between test-free “equity” policies and clear, measurable standards.

Columbia Reverses Course On “Permanent” Test-Optional Pledge

Columbia University has decided that, beginning with applicants for fall 2027, students will once again need to submit either SAT or ACT scores as part of their application. During the pandemic, Columbia dropped its test mandate and later announced that policy as “permanently” test-optional, saying entrance exams would be only one more piece of information in a holistic review process.^[2] At that time, school officials insisted students who skipped scores would not be at any disadvantage compared with those who submitted them.^[2]

Columbia’s earlier move had made it the first Ivy League school to adopt test-optional admissions indefinitely.^[2] That policy covered Columbia College and the engineering school and was sold as a way to give applicants “flexibility” in how they showed academic talent.^[2] Now the university is shifting again, and will join other elite schools that already returned to test requirements after seeing problems with test-optional systems. The change signals that, even in left-leaning higher education, hard numbers still matter when the stakes are high.

What Columbia’s Own Numbers Say About Academic Standards

Even while tests were optional, the students who actually enrolled at Columbia had off-the-charts scores. College Board’s BigFuture profile reports that enrolled students typically scored between 1510 and 1560 on the SAT and between 34 and 36 on the ACT, with a regular decision admit rate of about 3.86 percent.^[4] Private admission guides echo this picture, noting average SAT scores around the mid-1500s and average ACT scores around 35 for successful applicants.^[1]

One widely used admission site tells students that, to have the best chance of getting in, they should aim near a 1560 on the SAT or a 36 on the ACT and hold a grade point average above 4.1 on a weighted scale.^[1] Another counseling service describes Columbia as “test-optional,” yet still recommends an SAT range from about 1490 to 1560 or an ACT score between 34 and 35 to be a strong candidate.^[3] In plain terms, Columbia’s own outcome data and outside advice agree that this is a school where very high test scores are the norm, not the exception.^[4]

From “Tests Optional” To Tests Required: What Changed?

When Columbia first dropped test requirements in 2020, it leaned on language many parents now recognize from diversity and inclusion campaigns.^[2] The school said it wanted students to “represent themselves fully” and claimed that test scores were not essential for judging academic talent.^[2] It promised that applicants without scores would not be looked on less favorably, and listed SAT and ACT results as “considered if submitted” in common admission data tools.^[4] In effect, Columbia told families that numbers no longer defined opportunity.

But the college admissions world did not stand still. Over the next few years, other Ivy League universities that had gone test-optional announced they were bringing back requirements, often pointing to research that test scores help predict first-year grades and success when read alongside grades and course rigor. Columbia, according to student reporting, held out the longest and was described as the last Ivy League to remain indefinitely test-optional going into the 2027–2028 admissions cycle. With this new change, Columbia is finally lining up with its peers, even if it has not yet released a full internal study laying out the evidence behind the decision.

Why This Fight Over Tests Matters To Parents And Taxpayers

For many conservative families, the test-optional era felt like one more attack on clear standards in favor of vague “holistic” buzzwords. Standardized tests are not perfect, but they give students across the country at least one common measure, no matter where they go to high school. Columbia’s own guidance and the surrounding ecosystem of private counselors show that, in practice, high scores never stopped mattering, even when the school claimed they were optional.^[3] The main difference was who got to see the real rules of the game.

Critics of testing often argue that exams are unfair and carry “disparate impact,” but the sources around Columbia’s shift do not offer hard, school-specific proof that requiring SAT or ACT scores hurts particular groups more than others.^[3] There is also no public Columbia study showing that test scores fail to predict success once students arrive on campus. That gap leaves room for politics and image to drive policy, instead of open data. For parents, it reinforces the sense that elite schools talk equality while quietly protecting exclusivity.