Test-Optional Comes to Oregon

With all public universities in the state adopting a new test-optional admissions policy, students and families need to understand the implications.

This week, students in Oregon saw their entire public university system join the growing test-optional movement. Along with their regional counterparts, both the state’s flagship schools, the University of Oregon and Oregon State University, announced that, beginning with the 2021 admissions cycle, submission of SAT or ACT scores will be up to applicants’ discretion. 

To better understand these and other changes to testing policies amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, let’s examine the context, extent, and implications of going test-optional.

A Shortfall in Applicants

Even without the travel restrictions and general upheaval wrought by coronavirus, this is a challenging time to be a college. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, colleges’ and universities’ enrollments steadily rose throughout the first decade of the 21st century. This growth tapered off around 2011, in part due to the Great Recession. Nearly everyone in higher education believed enrollments would ultimately bounce back – until the demographers got involved. 

Nathan Grawe, author of Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education, predicts that by 2026 colleges may need to prepare for a loss of “15 percent of the typical college-going population.” This shortfall is slated to hit smaller regional colleges and state universities, neither of whom typically have sizable endowments, especially hard. (Portland State University’s endowment is $73M, and University of Oregon’s is around $912M – whereas Stanford’s is over $26B. For reference, UO’s operating budget is around $1.1B.)

But the demographic shift only applies to the “typical college-going population.” These tend to be the kids of well-educated, upper-middle class families. According to the test-optional narrative, these are the sort of students who historically score well on tests. Other kinds of students (e.g., underrepresented minorities) historically don’t score well.

So, how do you prepare to attract less of the former and more of the latter in coming years? You do away with standardized testing requirements. 

The new coronavirus (COVID-19) has accelerated this need by bringing immense uncertainty into the equation. For one, the status of near-term international travel is unknown, and the State Department seems unwilling to grant routine visas (incl. student visas) until the pandemic is resolved. That cuts out a huge swath of prospective – and often full-paying – students at most universities. Second, both domestic and international SAT and ACT test dates have been canceled to enforce social distancing, severely limiting the opportunities students have to test and, subsequently, submit competitive scores.

At this point, a test-optional policy starts to look very attractive to colleges looking to increase – or simply maintain – enrollment. Here’s how Bloomberg.com puts it (emphasis added):

Colleges are being hit hard by a variety of economic factors, including refunding money for room and board and paying workers even though their campus populations are now minuscule. Schools with the least financial cushion could be at risk of cuts or closure if recruiting suffers. Standardized testing, at least, is one barrier they can eliminate.

Temporary Versus Permanent Changes

If our recent conversations with students (esp. sophomores) and parents are any indication, the question on everyone’s mind is Does test optional represent the new normal in college admissions, or is it a fleeting trend?

Oregon’s is the largest public university system to-date to announce a permanent test-optional policy; many others, including the University of California and Tufts University, have instituted temporary changes. In both cases, the decisions were likely accelerated by COVID-19, but these policies must have been in the works beforehand. That’s because admissions is a complex process, and impossible to change overnight.

First, to make fair admissions decisions, colleges and universities want as much data on students as possible – especially data that allows them to compare similar students, like two students at the same high school with comparable GPAs. Without another data point, such as a widespread measure of academic achievement (roughly 4 out of 5 students in the US take SAT, ACT, or both), admissions officers are forced to get creative, or else risk making subjective decisions.

That means only institutions with a developed test-optional admissions process would be ready to pull the trigger in the wake of COVID-19. Those implementing a temporary test-optional policy were probably considering a change already; now the pandemic, and more specifically the SAT and ACT test cancellations, has provided convenient cover for a trial run.

Second, it’s helpful to recognize that standardized tests are entrenched in more than just the admissions process – they’re often tied to financial aid, used to award course credit, and viewed as a tool to assess NCAA eligibility, to start. For an admissions office to say they will stop requiring applicants to submit scores is one thing; to extricate scores from all processes related to college entrance is another thing entirely.

Test-Optional Is Not Test-Blind

We mentioned above that oftentimes test scores are assigned to various levels of scholarship funds (so-called “merit aid”). One criticism of the test-optional movement, often leveraged by test-blind proponents, is that it’s dishonest to admit students without test scores, then award financial aid on the basis of these same scores. But that doesn’t stop test-optional colleges.

As of this writing, both University of Oregon and Oregon State University websites list SAT and ACT test scores as criteria for awarding their highest levels of scholarship aid. (A recent email from UO articulates their intention to reinvent the wheel in motion: “Under our new test-optional policy, students will get consideration for scholarships even without scores. In our first year under this new model, we cannot predict what criteria will result in what awards for these students, such that there are no automatic awards for test-optional students as of yet.”) This marks a tacit indication that the strongest students at these schools will continue to be singled out by their ability to earn high test scores.

Then there’s the question of how many students will opt to apply without test scores. A 2018 study by NACAC found that on average about 21.5% of students applying to test-optional schools chose not to submit scores, and that the admit rate of submitters was higher than that of non-submitters. Given that most public school districts in Oregon administer either SAT or ACT to juniors, it seems unlikely the same figures for UO and OSU will differ much in the coming years.

Conclusion

By most accounts, test-optional admissions spells good news for students. It says, If your test scores convey an important part of your academic story, share them; if not, use other application components to stand out.

In brief, this gives students an extra option. Next they need to determine if and when to exercise that option. Given that most schools will still consider test scores in admissions and merit aid decisions, it’s generally in their best interest to earn – and submit – a competitive score on the SAT or ACT.