The Enrollment Effects of Test-Optional Admissions Policies

• In Event: Test-Optional Admissions Policies and Other Trends in Selective College Admissions

Abstract

Highly-selective US universities play an important role in producing the country’s future leaders, but their admissions procedures are poorly understood. A nationwide event study using pre-Covid administrative data shows that switching from a test-mandatory to test-optional admissions policy tends to increase underrepresented minority enrollment, but these findings are limited by imperfect parallel trends, an absence of data on admits’ socioeconomic status or test performance, and a dearth of highly-selective schools that had implemented such policies. We conduct an audit study with the admissions officers of a highly-selective university – randomly manipulating or omitting real applicants’ standardized test scores – to measure the role of standardized testing in both test-mandatory and test-optional admissions regimes. The within-applicant causal effect of higher test scores on admissions likelihood is high and equal to the between-applicant correlation. When admissions is test-optional, the within-applicant cost of non-submission rises in test scores, with an average SAT break-even point of 1480 overall and 1430 for disadvantaged applicants. A simulation shows that test-optional admissions policies decrease admissions among higher-testing disadvantage students, but that this effect is more than offset by increased admissions among lower-testing students.

Author

• Zachary Bleemer, Princeton University
  Presenting Author