HayU Blog

Earlier this year, a handful of Ivy Plus schools announced a return to testing requirements for students applying for Fall 2025 admission. A few others announced a return to testing requirements for Fall 2026. 

The explanations for this varied, as well as the specifics of the policies, but they all generally align with a broader sentiment we’re increasingly hearing from colleges, especially highly competitive ones: many colleges are looking for data points to assess college readiness outside of the high school GPA, and are looking to test scores (SAT, ACT, and even AP scores) as an important piece of that bigger picture.

As the college landscape continues to evolve, our advice evolves with it. We encourage families with access to school counselors or private consultants to discuss the pros and cons of testing with their counselor(s) for an informed and personalized recommendation. Given the complexity of the current college process, there’s less and less one-size-fits-all advice to share.

How We Advise

Here’s how we’re currently thinking about testing for our college consulting clients at Hayutin:

For colleges that have reinstated their testing requirements, students have to submit scores in line with the individual school policies (mostly SAT or ACT scores, but there are exceptions). On the other end of the spectrum, colleges that are test-free or test-blind have a stated policy of not reviewing or considering test scores at all in the admissions process.

For colleges that have long-standing test-optional policies that predate the pandemic, our view is that students can feel confident that these colleges have a strong commitment to an admissions process that does not disadvantage students applying without test scores. Students with strong scores can and should choose to submit them at these schools, but students without scores they want to share can feel very good applying without them.

For colleges with pandemic-era test optional policies, particularly highly selective colleges and/or colleges that haven’t yet committed to making their current test-optional policies permanent, the question becomes much more complicated. At some of these schools, the admissions data, and in some cases even the public messaging from the admissions offices, is increasingly suggesting that students submitting scores are heavily favored in admissions decisions. There are also indications some of these colleges may be wary of students applying without any test scores, and that applying without scores negatively impacts admissions chances.

For this final group of colleges, whether or not to submit scores needs to be considered on both a student-by-student and a school-by-school basis. Many students who have taken the SAT or ACT submit their best scores to some schools on their list but not others, based on how competitive their scores are at each college. We generally don’t encourage students to submit noncompetitive scores simply for the sake of submitting scores; it’s better to apply sans scores than apply with scores that might hurt the application.

On the other hand, we never discourage students from applying to selective test-optional schools where they’re otherwise great candidates just because they don’t have competitive scores to submit. Not having scores at these schools doesn’t mean an automatic rejection, and many students gain admission to highly selective test-optional colleges without test scores every year.

Test scores continue to be one piece of a much larger application, and GPA and rigor of high school course load are frequently the most heavily considered pieces of the application portfolio. 

To test or not to test?

Before deciding whether or not to submit scores, you need to decide whether or not to test (and prep) in the first place. We always recommend students take a full-length practice SAT or ACT before deciding whether or not to pursue test prep. Once we have a baseline score, we can evaluate what kind of gains are realistic based on the time and energy a student has for the work, as well as what will fit a family budget. In many cases, it makes more sense to walk away and put the time and treasure towards something else. In others, the test prep pathway can be well worth the investment. At Hayutin, we love partnering with families to consider the viability and sustainability of all the options, and to craft custom plans and timelines for students who choose to prep with our team.

Final note

We can’t predict yet whether more colleges will announce a return to SAT/ACT requirements for the class of 2026 in the coming months. It’s possible that we’ll see more Ivy Plus or R1 schools joining the test-required ranks, or we may see few to no changes at all. 

Whatever happens, we’ll be staying up-to-date on the latest news and trends, and we’ll continue to offer our test prep and college consulting clients the best advice we can with the information we have. We’re all about transparency at Hayutin, and we’ll always be straightforward with our families about what we can and can’t know as we navigate these changing processes together.

Annika Guy

Director