For a few years, the message to high school students was that the SAT no longer mattered much. Apply without a score, the thinking went, and you would be judged on your grades, your essays, and who you were beyond a single Saturday morning. At the most selective colleges, that message is being walked back, and the change is happening quickly.
If you are a sophomore or junior aiming at competitive schools, plan on testing and prepare for it seriously. Many of the schools that paused their testing requirements are the same ones now bringing them back, and they have explained why.
Which colleges are requiring the SAT again
The list of selective colleges that have restored a testing requirement has grown long. For the 2026-27 admissions cycle, six of the eight Ivy League schools require the SAT or ACT: Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, and Penn. Princeton remains test-optional for applicants entering in fall 2026 or fall 2027, but will require scores beginning with applicants for fall 2028 enrollment. Columbia remains test-optional. Outside the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, and Caltech have also returned to requiring scores.
Yale added to the trend this week. On May 27, the university announced that starting with the next admissions cycle, applicants must submit an ACT or SAT score, restoring the policy it had before 2020. During the test-flexible years that followed the pandemic, Yale let students meet the requirement with AP or IB scores instead. That option is gone. The change came out of a review by a presidential council, which recommended returning to the pre-2020 approach.
Even while scores were optional, most Yale applicants sent them anyway. Yale reported that more than 80% of applicants included an ACT or SAT score in each of the last two test-flexible cycles, and that 92% of the class entering in fall 2026 included one. When that many applicants test voluntarily, “optional” describes the rule more than the behavior.
Still, this is not happening everywhere. More than 2,000 colleges remain test-optional or test-free for fall 2026, including large public systems such as the University of California, Cal State, and SUNY. The shift back to required testing is concentrated at the most selective schools, which is also where applicant pools are deepest and a strong score does the most for you.
Why the shift is happening
Two things are behind it.
One reason is research. A 2025 Opportunity Insights study, drawing on data from students at the Ivy-plus colleges, found that test scores carry more predictive power than the public debate had assumed. Students with a perfect score earned a first-year GPA about 0.43 points higher than students who scored 1200, and the lower-scoring group was five times more likely to earn at least one C+ or below. High school GPA, by contrast, separated students much less: a 4.0 predicted only about a tenth of a point higher first-year GPA than a 3.2. Once admissions officers had the test score, the transcript told them little more.
Another is grade inflation. As grades have drifted upward, they have become a weaker way to tell students apart. ACT has documented rising grades across core subjects, with the steepest climb in math: the average adjusted math GPA rose from 3.02 in 2010 to 3.32 in 2022, even as test performance did not improve. When grades climb and preparation does not, a transcript becomes harder to read, and colleges look for a measure they can compare across very different high schools.
We see that gap up close. When families come to us for one-on-one tutoring, a striking number of students arrive with 4.0 or higher GPAs and SAT scores that land at or below average. It surprises parents and students alike: straight A’s in every class, and a score suggesting the underlying skills are not yet where the SAT needs them to be. The grades and the test are pointing in different directions, and the test is often catching something the transcript misses.
That pattern shows up in the data too. A 2026 working paper by researchers at the University of Chicago and Oregon State found that parents tend to weigh grades more heavily than test scores when deciding whether a child needs help. The case families most often miss is the one where grades are high but scores are low: in that situation, parents were less likely to seek extra support, even when the score was flagging a real gap.
The warning from California
One of the sharpest signals this week did not come from an admissions office. It came from the faculty who teach students after they enroll.
Hundreds of University of California faculty members, led by mathematicians at Berkeley, signed an open letter asking the system to restore standardized math testing, such as SAT or ACT math scores, for STEM applicants beginning with applicants in the 2027 admissions cycle. UC dropped the tests entirely in 2020 and has been test-free since. Six years in, the professors describe preparation gaps wide enough that they are reteaching middle-school math while trying to cover college material at the same time. For three straight years, they wrote, 20% to 30% of Berkeley’s first-semester calculus students who took a diagnostic showed serious deficits.
A UC San Diego Senate report last fall showed a similar pattern. In fall 2025, 921 incoming students, or 11.8% of the class, enrolled in remedial math, up from less than 1% before 2021. Separately, reporting on the Senate report found that about one in twelve students in the fall 2025 cohort placed below a middle-school math level. In 2024, a quarter of the students placed into the remedial course had earned a 4.0 in high school math. The grade and the placement result were telling different stories.
The faculty framed the issue around student readiness and support. As one of the lead organizers put it, admitting a student to a demanding program without knowing whether they are ready is not a favor if they struggle once they arrive. Their argument is that removing test scores from admissions did not eliminate preparation gaps; it made those gaps harder to identify before students arrived.
What this means for you
If you are applying in the next couple of cycles, here is a practical read of the landscape.
Assume the selective schools you care about may want a score, including some that still call themselves test-optional. Policies can change between sophomore year and senior year, and students are already responding. More than 2 million members of the class of 2025 took the SAT, the first class to pass that mark since the pandemic. Common App data also shows score reporting rising in the 2025-26 cycle: through March 1, the number of applicants reporting a score was up 10% year over year while the number not reporting one fell 6%, with reporters outnumbering non-reporters at that point in the season. A strong score can help at many selective schools; a missing score is no longer something to dismiss casually.
Start earlier than you think you need to. The students who do best are rarely the ones cramming in the fall of senior year. They are the ones who build the skills over months, working steadily through SAT practice or ACT practice well ahead of test day. The test rewards preparation, and preparation is something you can control.
And if your grades are strong, do not assume the score will follow on its own. Many selective colleges are returning to the test partly because grades no longer tell them enough on their own. A high GPA paired with a low score is the mismatch admissions officers are watching for, and the one we see most often when families first come in. The earlier you spot it, the more time you have to close it.
Test-optional policies gave students flexibility during an unusual stretch of years. The current move back toward testing at selective schools reflects a different concern: colleges want another academic signal when grades and course titles are hard to compare. For students, the response is straightforward. Prepare early, take the SAT or ACT seriously, and treat the score as one more way to show academic readiness.
Frequently asked questions
Which Ivy League schools require the SAT or ACT for 2026-27?
Six of the eight require a score: Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, and Penn. Princeton stays test-optional for fall 2026 and fall 2027 entry and will require scores starting with fall 2028 enrollment. Columbia remains test-optional.
Is the SAT required again at top colleges outside the Ivy League?
Yes, at many of them. Stanford, MIT, and Caltech have all reinstated a testing requirement. Even so, most colleges nationwide remain test-optional, so requirements vary widely below the most selective tier.
Do test scores actually predict college success?
Research from Opportunity Insights found that scores predicted first-year college GPA more strongly than high school grades among students at highly selective colleges. A perfect scorer averaged about 0.43 points higher in first-year GPA than a student who scored 1200, while the difference between a 4.0 and a 3.2 high school GPA was only about a tenth of a point.
Should I submit a score to a test-optional school?
If your score is at or above a school’s published range, submitting it usually helps. The harder call is a score below the range, where the decision depends on the rest of your application. When in doubt, prepare early enough that you have a strong score to submit and can decide from a position of strength.
When should I start preparing for the SAT or ACT?
Most students benefit from building skills over several months rather than cramming senior fall. Starting in sophomore or early junior year leaves room to test, review, and retest if needed.