After four years of test-optional admissions for undergraduate applications, The University of Texas at Austin will return to requiring standardized testing scores, beginning with applications for the Fall 2025 semester. The University suspended the standardized score requirement in Spring 2020 due to limited testing availability during the COVID-19 pandemic...

Analysis of the University’s own data further revealed that on average, students who submitted standardized scores performed significantly better on those exams and in their first semester of college, relative to those who did not take the test or chose not to have their scores considered as part of a holistic review...

Those who opted in had a median SAT score of 1420, compared with a median of 1160 among those who did not.

The higher standardized scores translated on average to better collegiate academic performance. Of 9,217 first-year students enrolled in 2023, those who opted in had an estimated average GPA of 0.86 grade points higher during their first fall semester, controlling for a wide range of factors, including high school class rank and GPA.