Like most schools, Brown suspended the use of standardized tests during the pandemic and has continued that suspension each year since even as the pandemic waned. But an investigation at Brown showed that the tests were extremely good at predicting student success and so today the school announced that it is returning to them for all undergraduate applicants.

Brown University will reinstate its requirement that applicants submit standardized-test scores, university officials announced Tuesday, the third Ivy League school to return to that pre-pandemic admission norm in recent weeks.

The school will continue to give an advantage to applicants whose parents attended or work at Brown, and will still allow students to apply early, if they choose.

Brown is now the third Ivy League school to return to the SAT in the last few months. Dartmouth reinstated it at the beginning of last month and Yale followed suit a couple weeks later. Like both of those schools, Brown carried out its own internal investigation to determine whether or not the tests were useful at predicting student success. And like both schools, Brown found that test scores were more predictive than any other single indicator. This comes from an executive summary of a report published by Brown. [emphasis added]

Over the past three years, the number of applications has soared (with about 25% more applicants by 2022-23 than would have been predicted based on the prior baseline trend), and approximately 40% of applicants to Brown have chosen not to submit scores from standardized tests. Data from the Class of 2025 and Class of 2026 indicate that academic outcomes — whether measured by the fraction of grades that are high or by the fraction of students who struggle academically— are strongly correlated with test scores. An applicant’s test scores are a strong predictor of a student’s performance once enrolled, and of their capacity to succeed in a rigorous academic environment.  

This relationship holds across all subgroups, including within groups from less-advantaged vs. more advantaged high schools, and for HUG vs. non-HUG students.1 The weaker academic performance of students who do not submit scores is, on average, on par with students who submit lower test scores, suggesting that applicants (and their guidance counselors) think strategically about whether submitting test scores will help or harm their applications.

This is almost identical to what Yale said last month.

Yale’s research from before and after the pandemic has consistently demonstrated that, among all application components, test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future Yale grades.

In short, test scores are a better predictor than grades or anything else how well a student will do in a tough academic environment. Brown also found that ditching test scores was not helping them create a more diverse student body (something which all schools are fixated on).

...the data suggest unintended adverse outcomes of test-optional policies in the admissions process itself, potentially undermining the goal of increasing access. The committee was concerned that some students from less-advantaged backgrounds are choosing not to submit scores under the test-optional policy, when doing so would actually increase their chances of being admitted. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that median test scores have risen under the test-optional policy, as students with weaker testing have chosen not to submit their scores. Published information on high median test scores may be intimidating to applicants who are not aware that scores are only one element of the application, and that scores are interpreted in the context of their background and experiences.

To spell all of this out, students with high grades saw the decision to drop test scores as their chance to get into an Ivy League school. So applications went up even as many of the new applicants chose not to submit scores which they feared were below average. The result was that only those who scored extremely high on the tests submitted their scores, creating an artificial and much higher average that didn't really represent all applicants. This led even fewer students to submit scores that were good but not at the very high end. Some of those students may have gotten the highest scores recorded from their particular high school even if they were somewhat lower than the average. And lacking any information on how these students did relative to where they went to school, they were overlooked by Brown. Here's how the summary report put it.

...applicants from underserved schools and communities who lack both test scores and similar advantages may appear less competitive in the very large and highly selective pool. However, strong testing, interpreted in context, may actually serve to demonstrate their ability to succeed at Brown — and the lack of scores may mean that admissions officers hesitate to admit them. 

I think the trend line is pretty clear at this point. Dartmouth, Yale and Brown have all reinstated the SAT this year, joining MIT which did so last year. Harvard, Princeton, Cornell and others seem likely to follow. Whether other schools do so probably matters less.

Last year the NY Times published this helpful graphic which shows there are actually very few schools whose acceptance rate is lower than 25%. All together, those roughly 60 schools only accept 6% of America's college students. When you add in the schools with an acceptance rate between 25% and 50% you add in another 90 or so schools but only another 10% of the total number of college students. To sum up, the top 150 or so most competitive schools accept about 16% of US students. All of the rest of America's college students go to schools that accept the majority of applicants. Here's a very condensed version of the graphic.

Love this graphic from the @nytimes No disrespect to highly selective colleges and universities but they only represent a small portion of the market while receiving most of the attention. pic.twitter.com/Zz5dBlhZM3

— William Faust (@williamfaust) July 3, 2023

So it's really just a small fraction of schools that are competitive enough that having a strong SAT score matters. At most schools, the acceptance rate is high enough that it probably doesn't matter as much.