Is the SAT making a comeback? More colleges are returning to test score requirements, but effectiveness remains questioned

Are the SATs the newest fad to come back to school?

Colleges such as Dartmouth, Brown and Yale have reinstated their standardized test score requirements. A new, digitized version of the SAT, implemented this past weekend, is shorter and aims to improve the test-taking experience.

But questions remain over whether universities should require SAT and ACT scores as pandemic-induced test-optional policies reach their expiration dates.

Upward of 80% of colleges and universities are remaining test-optional through fall 2025, according to FairTest, an educational nonprofit that advocates for fairness and accuracy in student test-taking. The University of Pittsburgh and Penn State are among those schools.

As colleges navigate 2026 and beyond, FairTest Executive Director Harry Feder believes it's important for schools to both examine their internal data and listen to their students.

"I think they really need to consider what kind of an institution they want to be," Feder said. "Are they about providing opportunity? Are they about seeing what really makes for a student who would take advantage of the education and thrive in the education that they're providing?"

Here's where regional selective universities stand on the issue as different data point to the pros and cons of standardized testing requirements.

Where do regional selective universities stand?

All three of the selective universities in the Pittsburgh region — Carnegie Mellon University and the main campuses at Pitt and Penn State — are test-optional for fall 2024 applicants.

Data from Pitt and Penn State indicate that students are taking advantage of test-optional policies. At Penn State, 61% of University Park applicants applied without an SAT or ACT score for fall 2023, while 55% of applicants to Pitt's Oakland...