The Return of Required Testing

Almost everything at Harvard has returned to its pre-pandemic norm. Students are in classrooms, meals are in dining halls, and now, hopeful applicants will be flocking back to standardized testing centers.

Last week, Harvard College announced that it will reinstitute its standardized testing requirement for students applying to the class of 2029, reversing a commitment to remain test-optional through the next two application cycles.

The timing of the announcement is hardly ideal. Test-takers generally start sitting for exams the spring before their applications are due — and often begin studying long before that. For today’s high school juniors, the college application process is already well underway. Springing this requirement could permanently set back students who presumed they could apply without test scores, deepening application inequalities and confusing already-anxious applicants.

Not to mention — Harvard’s decision to renege on its promise to applicants that the school would remain test-optional hardly lives up to its prized motto of “Veritas.”

Moreover, Harvard’s policies on alternatives for students unable to take the SAT remain incredibly vague. Though AP, IB, and similar alternatives are allowed in “exceptional cases,” Harvard has yet to clarify what circumstances would actually warrant an exemption.

Yet, while Harvard may have botched the rollout of its policy change, their decision is ultimately sound: Standardized tests remain a usefully objective metric that can advance equity when deployed correctly.

Don’t take our word for it. When MIT reinstated its standardized testing mandate in 2022, it cited internal findings that the requirement improved their ability to identify talented applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds and predict academic success. When Yale did the same earlier this year, they pointed to their own evidence showing that test-optional policies often disadvantage poorer applicants.

Standardized testing is far from an equitable measure of aptitude. But alongside a review that pits the ostentatious internships and bedazzling extracurriculars of wealthy students against the after-school jobs of students who must support their families, the SAT may be the least of many evils.

We’re glad that Harvard correctly noted testing’s potential to advance socioeconomic diversity in their announcement of the policy. But if Harvard is serious about this commitment, they must overhaul other aspects of the application process.

Children of alumni were accepted at a rate of 33 percent to the classes of 2014 through 2019. Those on the dean’s list — a secretive catalog compiled apparently at the behest of donors — were admitted 42 percent of the time. And recruited athletes enjoyed an acceptance rate of 86 percent.

Many of these students benefit from inordinate levels of privilege and wealth. If Harvard is seriously committed to the worthwhile goal of advancing diversity, ending preferences like these are a glaring place to start.

The University shouldn’t stop there. Harvard could join its Ivy League peers in expanding the size of the student body and chart new ground by implementing socioeconomic affirmative action.

Bringing back testing can be a step towards equity. But steps will not suffice in a post-affirmative action world: Harvard must begin taking leaps and bounds.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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