Swarthmore College will continue its test-optional admissions policy for up to five more years. The move aligns the school with many of its peer institutions that chose to de-emphasize SAT and ACT scores amid shifting access, evolving test design, and questions about long-term implications of scores on outcomes.
The decision, confirmed by Dean of Admissions Jim Bock ’90, follows nearly three years of internal analysis and consultation across campus. In a statement to The Phoenix, Bock emphasized that the college’s choice was neither reactive nor symbolic but grounded in “performance and retention data” tracked since the policy was piloted in 2020.
Over this period, Bock, Director of Admissions Isthier Chaudhury and analysts from the Institutional Effectiveness, Research & Assessment (IERA) office met with faculty leadership across divisions and the Summer Scholars Program, along with senior administrators and board members, to evaluate how students admitted without test scores were faring. The findings, according to Bock, show that both test-submitters and non-submitters are “overwhelmingly doing well,” with retention rates remaining high for both groups.
Bock noted that while students who applied without scores have exhibited slightly lower first and second year GPAs on average, this gap was “not worrisome.” IERA also compared outcomes for non-submitters with those of students whose test scores were lower than most applicants’, and found that both groups showed similar academic trajectories.
These analyses, Bock said, strengthen the college’s confidence that “informed [admissions] decisions can be made with or without scores.” Swarthmore remains test optional, not test blind, allowing students to submit SAT and ACT scores at their discretion and continuing to consider AP exam results, IB predicted scores, and country-specific high school leaving or graduation exams when offered.
Although headlines in the past year have framed the ongoing debate within higher education about test-optional admissions as trending back to pre-pandemic norms of required testing, Bock argued that this perception is misleading. Many peer institutions, such as Amherst, Bowdoin, Carleton, Pomona, and Williams, have reaffirmed test-optional policies.
In 2023, Columbia University adopted a fully test-optional stance indefinitely, becoming the last Ivy League university to keep the policy. The University of Michigan continues to operate under test-optional admissions, and the entire University of California (UC) system remains test-free under the terms of a 2021 settlement agreement. The agreement required the UCs to end the use of SAT and ACT scores in admissions and maintain a score-free process through at least 2025. Unlike test-optional policies, the UCs’ test-free approach means scores cannot be submitted at all. The agreement effectively locked in the UCs’ move away from standardized testing and set the precedent for many other institutions to follow.
Research on the broader impact of test-optional policies remains mixed. A 2021 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that test-optional practices led to increases in applications from low-income and underrepresented minority students; however, test scores are strongly correlated with first-year GPA at one studied college. The authors caution that yield and enrollment patterns vary across institutions. Meanwhile, the National Association of College Admission Counseling maintains that standardized test scores often mirror family income and access to preparation resources rather than academic potential.
Recent studies and policy briefs, however, suggest that while test-optional admissions have improved access in some contexts, they may not deliver the equity gains many anticipated and may introduce unintended consequences.
A brief from the Campaign for College Opportunity warns that test-optional policies “may have a limited impact on student demographics … without significant investments in financial aid and support.” Moreover, research compiled by the Law School Admission Council found that among 180 selective liberal arts colleges, dropping the test requirement did not meaningfully increase enrollment of students with financial need or minority students, and in some cases may have reinforced stratification by shifting emphasis to credentials like curricula and extracurriculars that favor more advantaged applicants. Other commentators, still, have defended the SAT and other standardized tests, pointing to research that suggests they are more equitable than many other factors considered for college admissions.
Swarthmore’s reasoning also reflects a less-discussed logistical barrier: the shrinking availability of testing seats, particularly in states like California. When the UCs ended their SAT/ACT requirements, the state’s demand for testing dropped sharply, and so did the number of schools willing to administer exams.
Testing centers rely on a combination of staff availability, institutional interest, and expected turnout. Once the UCs announced they would no longer consider scores, many California high schools scaled back or stopped offering the SAT entirely because fewer students needed it for in-state admissions.
As a result, the remaining centers now face capacity strain, leaving “not enough seats for all high school SAT test-takers,” as Bock explained. Families with greater financial means have begun reserving seats at under-resourced high schools or traveling out of state for tests, a pattern that risks widening inequality. California remains one of Swarthmore’s largest applicant markets, making restricted access a significant concern.
Compounding this uncertainty is the ACT’s recent acquisition by a private equity firm and its decision to remove the science section. Because these revisions have not yet been studied for reliability or aligned with updated concordance tables that show how ACT scores translate to SAT equivalents, colleges still lack evidence about whether the redesigned exam measures what it claims to measure. “It is unclear when new validity testing is occurring,” Bock said, noting the admissions office’s hesitation to rely on rapidly shifting assessments.
For students who applied without scores, the policy has changed the admissions process beyond providing a simple option. “I have never been a strong test-taker,” said Elisabeth Ferris ’27, who noted that applying test-optional let her focus on her “writing, coursework, and growth as a student” rather than “a single score dependent on three hours on a Saturday morning.” She described the option as both stress-reducing and more representative of who she was academically.
Y’onna Hale ’26 echoed that sense of relief. “Applying without test scores wasn’t that stressful,” they said. “I did well on the ACT, but I didn’t want my ability to take a test to influence my overall academic success.” Hale added that avoiding the pressure to pursue a “perfect score” allowed them to approach the application process with more confidence and less anxiety.
Others shared the same feelings, describing the freedom as relieving, while others framed it as a calculated risk. Still, others see it as a practical necessity given cost or access.
By extending the policy for up to five more years, Swarthmore aims to track graduating-class outcomes with greater precision from the expanded data. The college will continue to monitor academic performance, retention, and six-year graduation rates across submitters and non-submitters while watching for changes in test design, availability, and national trends.
For now, the decision places Swarthmore alongside several peer institutions that see test-optional admissions not as a temporary pandemic artifact but as an ongoing strategy to preserve equitable access. As Bock put it, the policy aligns with the college’s “continuing mission of broad access” — one that, in his view, cannot hinge on the stability of an assessment landscape still in flux.
It is ironic that the Phoenix is running this article in the same issue as an Office Hours dedicated to AI, because student use of AI in K-12 education and its implications for admissions is the elephant in the room in this discussion.
Tons of evidence is accumulating that middle school and high school students are leaning heavily on AI at alarmingly high rates, often to replace complex thinking – to give them ideas for papers, to outline papers, to write the papers, to analyze articles, to do their math and science homework. Even worse, another body of evidence is accumulating that this kind of cognitive offload not only deprives people of the opportunity to build skills and knowledge but can actually reduce cognitive capability in general.
We haven’t felt the effects of these trends strongly at Swarthmore yet. The incoming first year class is the first to have had easy access to ChatGPT or other LLMs during the entirety of their junior and senior years in high school. But every year from here, the incoming class will have had even more time leaning on AI to replace actual thinking during their very formative educational years. The administration seems to want to lock this test optional policy in place for five years. By that time, we’ll have an entering first year class that has had access to ever more powerful AI tools since the 6th grade.
What does this have to do with standardized testing? The future looks like one in which there will be a huge number of high school seniors across the country who look great on paper – GPAs close to 4.0, crisply written essays, etc – who have never read a book cover to cover, never come up with a thesis for a paper or composed one on their own, rarely done their own math homework, and rarely read or analyzed an article without dropping it into an AI assistant first. And then of course there will be the huge number of students who also look great on paper and actually have put in the work – coming up with their own ideas, writing their own papers, puzzling through complex and difficult texts, burnishing their critical thinking and analytic skills, and generally doing all the things future students have always done at the high school level that prepare them to succeed at a place like Swarthmore. The fundamental problem is that these two populations will be increasingly difficult to differentiate in admissions.
Standardized test scores, despite flaws, are one of the most important data points Swarthmore and other institutions will have to differentiate those populations. Of course, they shouldn’t be leaned on exclusively and instead taken as one data point among many. But they will have huge value because – unlike grades or essays – they cannot be gamed or generated via AI. In my opinion, it is extremely shortsighted for the administration not just to effectively give up that data point (which it effectively does when test scores are optional, since only high scores are submitted) but to decide to do so for five years, which is an eternity in a world being rapidly transformed by AI.
-Sam Handlin, Associate Prof of Political Science
Sam, you’re so correct regarding impact of AI use. Standardized tests (PSAT, SAT, ACT, and all the graduate and professional school varieties) are now a VERY rare instance of a proctored, in-person assessment.
I also agree with you about pace of change and how unwise it is for Swarthmore to extend the standardized test score-optional status for five years.
Perhaps worth noting regarding the Law School Admission Council:
“Founded in 1947, the Council is best known for administering the Law School Admission Test (LSAT®), with over 150,000 tests administered annually at testing centers worldwide. In the face of pushback from members of the Law School Admission Council, some schools have begun rolling out the GRE as a testing alternative to the LSAT.”
OK, but what about the research they compiled? The main study they cite just happens to have a lead author who, in addition to having been a PhD candidate at the time, is the founder and lead consultant of a college admissions consulting company, one of whose services is “standardized testing strategy.”
Sure, sure. But what about the findings of this “quasi-experimental” study (whatever that means)? “Results show that, on average, test-optional policies enhance the perceived selectivity, rather than the diversity, of participating institutions.” “On average” (what kind of average). “Perceived selectivity” (perceived by whom). And, importantly, no claim that diversity was diminished. Just not increased “on average.”
What are we doing here?
Anyway, in my opinion, the absolute worst part of standardized tests (aside from the ACT being taken over by private equity, which is peak terrible), is how they inflict psychic damage on a wide range of people with disabilities. One of my family members is dyslexic and subjecting him to the SAT was nothing short of cruel (at the time, test-optional wasn’t really a thing anywhere, so he had no choice but to take it if he wanted to go to college, and accommodation for people with disabilities was even worse than it is now, which is really saying something, because it’s still bad).
And lest you think it’s just my family member who experienced this, from the ACT’s own website we find that disabled students who tested with accommodations performed much worse than the average (https://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/r1606-act-performance-for-students-with-disabilities-who-tested-with-accommodations-in-2014.pdf).
In the case of people with reading disabilities, of which dyslexia is one, the average ACT composite compared to that of all test takers was 5 points lower (21 vs. 16). Should elite higher education just be walled off to people with disabilities (3% of test takers (and who knows how many more test takers are undiagnosed))? Should people with disabilities be forced to list said disabilities on college applications so that admissions officers can try to shoehorn in some sort of correction?
Mandatory standardized testing is unequivocally ableist, and for that reason alone it should be yeeted. And there are a lot of reasons beyond that. The correct accommodation to offer to everyone is “you don’t have to take this test; you’re literally children, and you’ve jumped through more than enough hoops at this point, so it is incumbent upon us as adults to help you figure out the best options for your continued education.”
‘ Should elite higher education just be walled off to people with disabilities’
Perhaps. Rephrase this as ‘ Should airplane pilot training just be walled off to people who are blind’ or ‘Should training to be a professional dancer just be walled off to people who have poor coordination’.
For someone who has disabilities that prevent them from succeeding at elite academic institutions, even when provided with reasonable accommodations, perhaps another life path is a better choice than invoking ‘ablism’ critiques.
There have been multiple blind pilots and dancers with all sorts of disabilities. Thank you for bolstering my point.
Bowdoin, an alum of which just won the NYC mayoral race (and whose campaign manager was a Swarthmore alum), has been test-optional since the 60s. It’s doing fine. Every bit as elite as its non-test-optional peers.
All that said, I would welcome a test for posting in the Phoenix comments section. We could use a little more academic rigor around here.
‘Bock noted that while students who applied without scores have exhibited slightly lower first and second year GPAs on average, this gap was “not worrisome.”’ <– This is a circular argument because of rampant grade inflation at Swarthmore. Grades, outside the NSE division, are now so compressed that they simply don't serve as a useful metric for distinguishing between students who are thriving and students who are struggling at Swarthmore. Bock may not be worried, but many faculty members are.
One thing that standardized tests are good at is measuring mathematical ability. And mathematical ability is a pretty good proxy for the ability to think clearly. Swarthmore admits students with the promise that they can major in anything they want. The reality is that more and more students simply cannot succeed in NSE majors that require basic quantitative and critical thinking skills. We do no one, not the students in question and not the institution, a favor when we admit students who are not ready for college level math.
Agreed. Academic excellent and rigor should remain at the forefront of Swarthmore’s mission. In the absence of a perfect fix, standardized tests do allow the school to better understand applicants’ potential.