Bad news for the College Board, which owns the SAT. Yale University is going test-optional for the class entering in fall 2021.
Today Yale became the fifth Ivy League school to adopt a test-optional policy for the class of undergraduates who will be applying for admission in the fall of 2021. It joins Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania who have also announced they would not require either the SAT or ACT for their Class of 2025 undergraduate applicants.
According to a statement on Yale’s website, students who can’t take exams or who decide not to report scores “will not be disadvantaged in the selection process.”
After infection risk from the coronavirus forced the College Board, the nonprofit that administers the SAT, to cancel multiple test dates this spring, schools started announcing test-optional admissions policies. One hundred eighty have done so since the pandemic hit, according to Bob Schaeffer of FairTest, a nonprofit that opposes the use of standardized tests in admissions. That brings the total number of test-optional schools to 1,244. (FairTest keeps a database of test-optional schools.)
It’s not clear whether these policies will survive the pandemic. But who knows?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great news! Shoulda done it long ago!
As a former educator, I’m encouraged that the ridiculous testing is being eliminated. Many students I’ve encountered are extremely talented and bright, but have been left out of the opportunity to attend major colleges because testing wasn’t their ‘thing’.
amen
A great step forward. Now, if they can work on income inequality among the student body:
The median family income of a student from Yale is $192,600, and 69% come from the top 20 percent by income. 2.7 percent of Yale students come from the bottom 20 percent. –NY Times
the only way big name colleges can stay in business: pull in only the richy rich kids
My guess is many schools were just looking for a reason to get out of something they have known for a long time to be useless.
They won’t go back.
This is the beginning of the end for SAT.
Poor little Davy Coleman.
Hello have to look for another gig.
So teachers have ultimate control over the fates of their students. I can certainly see why teachers would want that control. I can also see why students would not. Bob, have you ever had “extremely talented and bright students” for whom high school has not been “their thing’? Now they have no hope at all.