Michael Bastedo speaks with Inside Higher Ed about changing test policies in the admissions process

In 2020, as admissions offices at colleges and universities across the country responded to the pandemic, many adopted temporary strategies regarding the requirement of test scores. Now, reports Inside Higher Ed, those policies are changing—and in some cases being reversed.

Four years after resisting the test-optional wave in 2020, the University of Michigan has formally adopted a test-optional policy. Meanwhile, Yale University, which had operated with a temporary test-optional policy during the pandemic, has now adopted a test-flexible policy. These switches highlight the array of policies that are emerging as colleges reassess their pandemic-era testing strategies amid intensifying debates over the purpose and usefulness of standardized exams.

Michael Bastedo, a CSHPE professor and founding director of the Michigan Admissions Collaboratory, served on the research committee that recommended U-M switch to test-optional. He tells Inside Higher Ed that the committee came to their conclusion for a few reasons: “the policy proved to be incredibly popular with students and families; admissions officers were moving away from heavily weighted metrics like scores and toward more holistic application readings; and most families were confused by the test-flexible policy.”

Bastedo believes the wide variation in admissions policies will make the application process even more challenging for students and families to navigate.

“If you apply to five schools and they all have different testing policies, that makes things harder for families,” says Bastedo. “It adds another layer of complexity onto an admissions landscape that’s already incredibly difficult to navigate, at a time when, in many ways, we’re trying to make the system less complicated.”