Here we go. Yale is officially waiving their SAT and ACT requirements for applicants to the class of 2025. It isn’t entirely surprising, given the fact that every other Ivy League has now announced that applicants are not required to submit testing with their applications if they so choose. Even so, it’s a big year for many reasons and it’s worth taking a bit of a closer look into Yale’s specific policy’s wording.
Here’s what they’re saying. Key sentences underlined:
Applicants who are unable to complete an exam or who choose not to report exam scores will not be disadvantaged in the selection process. As announced previously, SAT Subject Tests will not be considered during the 2020-2021 admissions cycle.
This one-year policy change reflects the extraordinary circumstances that students, families, and educators are currently facing. This policy applies only to students graduating from secondary school in the 2020-2021 academic year. Transfer applicants and students who intend to apply for admission to enroll in fall 2022 or later should plan to complete the ACT or SAT by the appropriate deadlines.
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions remains committed to a whole-person review process that relies on experienced application readers and a committee of admissions officers, faculty, and deans to consider every applicant’s unique context and circumstances. This commitment extends to Yale’s evaluation of a student’s test scores, when available. For applicants who choose to send scores, the Admissions Committee will continue to view the scores within the context of the student’s entire file; to focus on the highest individual section scores for students who have completed the exam more than once; to accept self-reported scores for the purposes of evaluation; and to take context into account if a student has had limited or no opportunities to complete an exam.
Okay. We have a few comments on this, but overall it’s important to note that indeed you will not be required to submit testing if you’re planning on applying to Yale this upcoming application cycle (and as long as you’re graduating in 2021--this does not apply to transfer students!). That said, it will still be considered. Yale went so far as to say that SAT Subject Tests will not be considered even if students submit them, so don’t submit them at all. They did not do this for the SAT/ACT. They did not say “so don’t bother submitting them.” They said that if you don’t, you won’t be disadvantaged.
Let’s dig into that language: Yale stated that those students who “choose not to report exam scores will not be disadvantaged in the selection process.” A fancy/veiled double negative always causes our ears and eyes to perk. Reverse this statement, and you get, “those who choose to report exam scores will be advantaged in the selection process.” Both are true. The latter still stands, even with a test-optional policy in place. @Yale, if we are wrong about this, please clarify.
What’s a bit frustrating to us is that they are so emphatic that they want to take context into account. We wish that they’d extend that framework, in particular when it comes to testing, without a global pandemic. No matter what’s happening from a public health perspective, there are always contextual clues and important contextual circumstances that make the testing process inherently unequal.
Applicants who have fewer resources available to them face “extraordinary circumstances” every single year. While everyone may have an opportunity to study and to take the exams themselves, the test prep industry and wealth inequality have made it impossible for a level playing field to exist. Test scores are more of a measure of access to resources, wealth, and power than they are a measure of intelligence or knowledge.
We hope that this wave of test-optional policies will give these competitive schools pause, and that they will consider extending this policy or extending their stance on SAT Subject Tests to all testing.
Let us know if you have any questions or if you want to discuss your application with us.