What does test optional really mean?

"Test optional" entered the mainstream during the pandemic, when colleges suspended testing requirements practically overnight. Most of them never brought those requirements back. The phrase is now everywhere: on college websites, in admissions counselor talking points, in the first thing families say when the subject of SAT prep comes up.

What it's come to mean in practice, though, is something closer to: "You don't have to worry about this." That's not quite right.

What the policy actually says

Test optional means students choose whether to submit SAT or ACT scores. If you submit, scores get considered. If you don't, the application is reviewed without them.

The reassuring version of this policy is that students aren't penalized for not submitting. The accurate version is more complicated. Colleges don't publish data on how test-optional applicants fare versus those who submit. What they do publish is the average SAT score of their enrolled class. That number has kept climbing at most selective schools, even those that went test optional. Make of that what you will.

Test optional, test blind, test required

These three terms get conflated constantly.

Test optional means submitting scores is your choice. Most schools fall here.

Test blind means the school won't consider scores even if you send them. A handful of schools use this policy. Submitting scores to a test-blind school accomplishes nothing.

Test required means exactly what it says. MIT reversed its test-optional policy and returned to requiring scores in 2022. A few other selective schools have done the same. Policies have been shifting, so check before assuming.

When submitting actually helps

Usually when the score is strong relative to what that school's admitted class looks like.

The working rule: if your child's score is at or above the 50th percentile of enrolled students, submit it. It helps. Below the 25th percentile, withhold it. Between those two points, you're making a judgment call, and the rest of the application matters a lot.

A few things families often don't think about until it's too late.

Admissions readers notice missing scores, especially for students who look academically strong by other measures. A 4.0 GPA with no test score isn't suspicious, but it does invite a question the application can't answer. That's not fatal. But it's real.

Merit scholarships at many schools, particularly large public universities, are tied to test scores and awarded automatically. A student who applies test optional might get in and miss scholarship money that a submitted score would have unlocked. If cost is part of the equation, this is worth investigating school by school before deciding not to test.

Some programs have separate requirements even when the general application doesn't. Engineering programs, honors colleges, and certain scholarships may require scores. Read the fine print.

So should my child prep?

For most families with selective schools on the list, yes, and the reasoning isn't complicated.

A strong score is an option. A weak score is also an option, in the sense that withholding it is always available. But not having a score at all removes the choice entirely. Students who go into applications without a score are betting that everything else is strong enough to stand alone. Sometimes that bet is right. Often it just means giving up an option that, with a few months of preparation, was available.

The financial aid angle reinforces this. Even at schools where scores carry less admissions weight, they can still drive scholarship decisions worth thousands of dollars. The return on focused prep can be significant.

The bottom line

Test optional gave families real power over one specific decision: whether to include a score. It didn't make scores unimportant. It made the question of whether to submit them one more thing to think carefully about.

The only way to make that decision well is to have a score in hand. You can't weigh something you don't know.

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