75% of U.S. colleges are test-optional or completely test-free for the winter 2025-spring 2026 admissions cycle, but college counselors are increasingly recommending students take the SAT and ACT. Here's why.

One relic from the pandemic era still making waves in higher education is the widespread adoption of test-optional and test-free admissions policies.

To be clear, these policies didn't originate in the pandemic. Several institutions, especially small liberal arts colleges, had instituted test-optional policies long before COVID-19.

What did change during the pandemic, though, was the fact that many highly selective colleges decided to shift to test-optional policies for the first time in their histories, creating a noteworthy indication that test-optional policies and incredibly high (at least perceived) rigor and value were not mutually exclusive.

So here we are in early 2026, with only 5% of institutions included on the Common App requiring test scores and yet seeing more students than years past opting to include test scores as part of their admissions materials.

What's going on?

Highly Selective Institutions Roll Back Test-Optional Policies

A considerable number of institutions that adopted test-optional policies in the height of the pandemic have since, and quite recently, reversed those decisions. Of today's top 20 colleges, 8 require testing for all applicants, 1 requires testing for applicants of certain programs, and 4 have set end dates for their test-optional policies.

All in all, that means 65% of top institutions do or soon will require standardized tests as part of their admissions again.

Students See Mixed Results with Test-Optional Applications

Early admissions decisions for the 2026-2027 academic year indicate that students who submit test scores to test-optional schools are more likely to be accepted than those who don't.

While admissions data for regular applicants will be needed before overarching conclusions can be drawn about the importance of test scores in test-optional admissions, we're already getting meaningful information about how students considering Early Admissions and Early Decision applications fare with regard to test score submission.

The implication that not sending scores can have a negative impact on acceptance rates flies in the face of most students' expectations, especially when institutions claim that students who don't send scores won't be penalized in the admissions process.

As a result, students looking to apply to top-ranked universities may need to reconsider their test strategies and bring the SAT and ACT back into their admissions plans.

My Two Cents

For all the controversy and lack of accessibility that standardized tests bring, I have to admit that I'm not surprised to see the trend heading this way, especially among top-tier institutions.

For one, standardized test scores give an important snapshot of student performance, but there's a delicate balance to be struck here.

On the one hand, standardized tests damage those with learning-related diagnoses as well as those who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds by creating false comparisons between these test-takers and those who are both neurotypical and had the resources and time for significant test prep.

On the other, they provide a useful point of comparison for student performance against today's ever-increasing grade inflation, helping institutions accurately predict student success and fit on campus.

As high school grades continue to inflate, I'm not surprised to see institutions return to standardized tests as a way of creating another benchmark for student preparedness, even acknowledging the problems that these tests bring with them.

Secondly, there's just too stinking much built into the standardized test ecosystem for the whole thing to just go away.

This point shows my cynicism a bit, but it can't be ignored that considerable time and infrastructure have been devoted to these tests over the decades of their existence.

College Board and, to a lesser degree, ACT have become giants in their own right. And while it's not impossible for giants to be taken down, College Board in particular has become so enmeshed in the high school to college transition that, even if it is ultimately going to fizzle out, I think the descent would be a slow and non-linear one.

What's more, colleges and universities often buy the demographic information students enter at the beginning of their tests from the testing companies to use in recruiting, meaning a significant portion of the access that institutions have to prospective students is afforded by none other than the SAT and ACT. Can markets for this information adapt? Absolutely, but I think it will be a while before another option is in place that so readily and dependably provides the level and volume of information that College Board and the ACT together do.

What Should You Do?

My greatest recommendation is to prepare for college admissions as if standardized tests are going to be a critical component of your admissions strategy.

Now, an important caveat to this is that that doesn't have to mean spending oodles of time on practice tests and other test-specific preparations.

The SAT and ACT both, at their core, test the kinds of skills and critical thinking that are taught throughout high school. Do well at developing these skills when they're presented, and test prep is practically already in the bag.

Functionally, that means: give your best to right now, even if now is middle school or freshman year, because what happens now is building a foundation for all that will come moving forward.

Encounter a topic in algebra that just is not clicking? Take the time to figure it out now; that extra work up front will do wonders from now on.

Have trouble with reading comprehension or writing mechanics? Ask for support now to walk through challenges until they become comfortable.

This mindset is part of the reason why I don't only teach my tutoring clients test-taking strategies to boost their scores. I try to teach them that all the work they're doing now isn't just for this upcoming quiz or test or class grade; it's creating solid, lasting ground upon which they can build all their future learning and pursuits, no matter where life might take them.

In my eyes, the point of education is teaching students how to learn, how to come across a novel problem and use the knowledge and resources available to them to work out a solution.

It's ultimately this problem-solving spirit that both the SAT and ACT try to capture, too.

So invest in today, face and overcome academic challenges when they arise, and treat all the work that's happening now not as something that becomes meaningless after the next test but as a necessary building block to all that comes next.

And if you'd like any help building that foundation or conquering those challenge areas, you know where to find me!

Facts and figures in this post were taken from the Common App's report, "First-year Application Trends Through December 1, 2025," US News's 2026 "Best National Universities," and FairTest data on current and historical test-optional policies at individual institutions.