Study 2
Test-optional went mainstream
How many colleges still require the SAT or ACT, who dropped the requirement, how many students still submit scores, and what did that do to published score ranges?
Still require the SAT or ACT
66%5%
Fall 2019 → fall 2024 · share of colleges
Median college's
63%15%
Fall 2019 → fall 2024 · median college
Median college's ACT submission share
45%11%
Fall 2019 → fall 2024 · median college
The national picture
Share of colleges whose requires the SAT or ACT, each fall since fall 2001, with a thinner line for colleges from fall 2022 (code 3 changed meaning that year: before, it meant "not required or recommended"; from fall 2022, "not considered at all"). Share of colleges, not students.
Where it changed
The same share-requiring line for each group, on one scale, plus research tier and athletic division.
Share of colleges requiring the SAT or ACT, fall 2001 to fall 2024. Numbers: fall 2019 → fall 2024.
- Required
Northeast
423 colleges
Required 47% → 2%
Southeast
373 colleges
Required 79% → 13%
Midwest
394 colleges
Required 75% → 2%
Southwest
107 colleges
Required 78% → 7%
West
186 colleges
Required 65% → 2%
Territories
28 colleges
Needs 30 or more
Who still submits
The median college's share of enrolled first-years submitting an SAT or ACT score, fall 2001 to fall 2024. Submission collapsed with the requirement, but least at the most selective colleges and R1 universities. The Midwest's low SAT submission and high ACT submission is the region's longstanding preference, not a new pattern.
Counting students instead of colleges: weighted by each college's enrolled first-years, 63% of enrolled first-years submitted an SAT at the median college in fall 2019; averaged across all 1,511 colleges by enrollment, the share submitting an SAT was 60% in fall 2019 and 27% in fall 2024.
What happened to the ranges
Published 25th and 75th percentiles, fall 2019 → fall 2024, by what each college's test policy did. These ranges describe only the students who chose to submit scores, not every entering student: a rising range at colleges that dropped the requirement is consistent with who chooses to submit, not evidence that admitted students got stronger.
25th percentile SAT
- Dropped the requirement
1030 → 1060
- Kept the requirement
1024 → 1010
- Optional both years
1070 → 1110
75th percentile SAT
- Dropped the requirement
1240 → 1278
- Kept the requirement
1230 → 1220
- Optional both years
1280 → 1320
Dropped the requirement: 610 colleges · Kept the requirement: 66 colleges · Optional both years: 123 colleges. Colleges with a published SAT 25th and 75th percentile in both years.
Went back to requiring tests
8 colleges that didn't require the SAT or ACT in fall 2022 require it again by fall 2024: too few to chart as their own group, but worth naming.
- Calvary UniversityTest scores required
- Harvard UniversityTest scores required
- Manhattan Christian CollegeTest scores required
- New Mexico Institute of Mining and TechnologyTest scores required
- Texas State UniversityTest scores required
- The University of Tennessee-ChattanoogaTest scores required
- The University of Tennessee-MartinTest scores required
- University of MemphisTest scores required
What it means
Across 1,511 colleges, the share requiring the SAT or ACT fell from 66% in fall 2019 to 5% in fall 2024: a gradual decline through the 2010s that the pandemic finished in two years. The Southeast and public colleges held out longest: 13% of Southeast colleges and 10% of public colleges still require a test, the highest shares of any group shown here. Submission collapsed everywhere, but least at the most selective colleges (35% still submit an SAT) and R1 universities (30%).
Published SAT ranges rose where tests became optional (25th percentile +30 points at the 610 colleges that dropped the requirement) and fell where colleges kept requiring tests (-14 points at 66 colleges). That's consistent with who chooses to submit a score once it's optional, not evidence that admitted students got stronger. 8 colleges have already reversed course and require tests again; see the list below.
A or test-blind changes who submits a score, not just whether a score is required: these numbers show where the pattern changed, not why any one college changed policy.
How this was measured
- Which colleges. Colleges reporting a test policy both at the last fall before the pandemic (the same baseline Home's test-optional fact uses) and the newest fall: 1,511 colleges in fall 2019 and fall 2024. It's a , so colleges entering or leaving the data don't look like change.
- Groups. Colleges are grouped by . A group needs 30 or more colleges in the panel; smaller ones show .
- Test-blind (code 3) meant "neither required nor recommended" through fall 2021 and "not considered at all" from fall 2022 on, when IPEDS dropped "recommended" as a separate answer. The thinner line and the optional/blind groups below use only fall 2022 on for that reason.
- Score ranges. The dumbbell compares colleges with a published SAT 25th and 75th percentile in both fall 2019 and fall 2024, split by what each college's test policy did over the same two years; each group still needs 30+ colleges, or it isn't charted (the colleges that went back to requiring tests are named instead).
- Shares and medians count each college once. The enrollment-weighted sentence above weights each college by its enrolled first-years.
- Yearly lines run from fall 2001 over the panel colleges reporting each fall; a year is left out of a line when under 90% of its colleges reported.
- The universe. The site's four-year colleges, not all of U.S. higher education. Breakdowns show where a change happened, not why.
Sources:IPEDS Institutional Characteristics survey (admissions section), Fall 2001 to Fall 2013;IPEDS Admissions survey, Fall 2014 to Fall 2024About the data(built 2026-10-12; CPI retrieved 2026-10-12)