Which Colleges Require SAT/ACT in 2026-2027?
Six of eight Ivies now require the SAT or ACT. See the full updated list of test-required colleges for 2026-2027, by school type, plus the key holdouts.
By Jorbi TeamOn May 27, 2026, Yale University quietly ended an era. Yale announced that every first-year and transfer applicant must now submit SAT or ACT scores, with no exceptions and no AP or IB substitutes. That makes six of eight Ivy League schools test-required for the 2026-2027 admissions cycle. If you're a rising senior trying to figure out whether mandatory SAT policy colleges 2026 affect your list, the answer is almost certainly yes.
Here's what changed, who changed it, and who hasn't.
The Ivy League Has Largely Flipped
The cascade started with Dartmouth in February 2024 and moved fast. Every school that reinstated requirements gave the next one political cover to do the same. Empowerly's updated breakdown confirms six Ivies are now fully test-required for the cycle opening this fall.
The table below maps every Ivy League school's current policy for students enrolling in fall 2027 (the Class of 2031).
School2026-2027 PolicyNotesMiddle 50% SATBrownTest-RequiredSAT or ACT1490-1580CornellTest-RequiredSAT or ACT1470-1570DartmouthTest-RequiredFirst Ivy to reinstate1460-1560HarvardTest-RequiredNarrow hardship exception only1510-1580UPennTest-RequiredHardship waiver available1510-1570YaleTest-RequiredSAT or ACT only; AP/IB no longer accepted1480-1560PrincetonTest-Optional (last cycle)Required starting 2027-20281500-1560ColumbiaPermanently Test-OptionalDeclared permanent March 20231490-1560
A few things worth knowing before you move on.
Princeton is test-optional for one final year. If you're applying this fall for fall 2027 enrollment, scores are still optional. But per Princeton's October 2025 announcement, the Class of 2032 will need to submit. Active military personnel are explicitly exempt, and Princeton says it will not set a minimum score threshold.
Columbia is now the sole Ivy holdout. The university became the first Ivy to declare test-optional status permanent back in March 2023 and has shown no signs of reversing course. Columbia's policy applies to both Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science.
One more note on Harvard: the school does allow alternative evidence (AP exams, IB results, A-Levels, GCSE scores) in rare, documented cases where a student genuinely could not access the SAT or ACT. This is a narrow carve-out, per Compass Test Prep's school-by-school tracker, and it is not a broad test-flexible policy. If you have any realistic way to sit the SAT or ACT before your application deadline, Harvard expects you to do it.
Elite Private Universities Outside the Ivies
The story beyond the Ivies is more mixed, but the trend at the very top is clear.
MIT never went back to test-optional after reinstating in 2022 and remains the earliest elite school to draw the line. Stanford reinstated for Fall 2026 entry. Caltech spent several years test-blind and is now fully back to required. Johns Hopkins came back in the 2024-2025 cycle. Georgetown never really left.
Here's where the top non-Ivy private universities stand, based on Compass Test Prep's school-by-school tracker and College Transitions' policy database.
SchoolPolicyNotesMITTest-RequiredRequired since 2022StanfordTest-RequiredReinstated for Fall 2026 entryCaltechTest-RequiredReturned from test-blindJohns HopkinsTest-RequiredReinstated 2024-2025 cycleGeorgetownTest-RequiredMaintained throughout pandemic periodCarnegie MellonPartially RequiredRequired for CS and Engineering; optional elsewhereDukeTest-OptionalNo reinstatement announcedNorthwesternTest-OptionalNo reinstatement announcedUniversity of ChicagoTest-OptionalNo reinstatement announcedNotre DameTest-OptionalReaffirmed November 2025VanderbiltTest-Optional (preferred)Highly encouraged but not requiredRice, Emory, WashU, USCTest-OptionalAll reaffirmed 2025
Carnegie Mellon deserves a specific callout here. If you're applying to the School of Computer Science or the College of Engineering, treat CMU as test-required. Other programs are still optional. Check the specific school page before you assume.
Duke, Northwestern, and UChicago are the most notable holdouts among highly selective private universities. None of them have announced a timeline for reinstatement.
Public Flagships: Where State Politics Meets Admissions Policy
This is where the picture gets complicated, because at public universities, admissions policy doesn't always live in the admissions office. Sometimes it lives in the state legislature or the board of trustees.
The entire Florida State University System and the University System of Georgia now operate under board-level mandates. That means UF, FSU, Georgia Tech, and UGA aren't making individual decisions to require testing; they're following system-wide directives. Florida even accepts the Classic Learning Test (CLT) as an alternative to the SAT or ACT at schools across the state system.
Here's the breakdown of major public flagships, drawn from Compass Test Prep and College Transitions' policy tracker.
Test-Required Flagships:
UT Austin (reinstated Fall 2025), Purdue (Fall 2024), Ohio State (2026 cycle, with superscoring now in effect), Georgia Tech, UGA, UVA, University of Florida, Florida State, UT Knoxville.
LSU is reinstating for Fall 2027. Auburn is in a transition year: test-optional for students with a GPA of 3.6 or higher for Fall 2026, then fully required for everyone starting Fall 2027.
Test-Optional Flagships:
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), Michigan State, University of Washington, University of Oregon.
Permanently Test-Blind:
Every UC campus (Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC Santa Cruz, UC Merced) operates under a permanent Board of Regents mandate. Scores are not accepted, not considered, not used for placement at time of admission. Don't submit them to a UC.
UNC-Chapel Hill sits in an interesting middle space: test scores are optional for students with a weighted GPA of 2.8 or above, but effectively required for applicants below that threshold. That's a conditional structure worth paying attention to if Chapel Hill is on your list.
Liberal Arts Colleges: The Most Notable Holdout Group
If you're targeting top LACs, the landscape looks almost completely different from what you've read so far.
Virtually every school in the top 25 LAC rankings remains test-optional for the 2026-2027 cycle. Many of these institutions have deeply held philosophical commitments to holistic review, and some have been test-optional for decades. Bowdoin dropped the requirement in 1969. Bates followed in 1984. Pomona made its policy permanent in November 2023, before the reinstatement wave even picked up speed.
FairTest's Fall 2026 data shows that 2,088 out of 2,248 ranked four-year colleges remain test-optional or test-free. That's over 90% of the total universe of ranked schools. The reinstatement story is primarily a story about the very top of the national university rankings, not about higher education broadly.
Here's a snapshot of where the top LACs stand for 2026-2027.
SchoolPolicyNotesWilliams (#1)Test-OptionalPermanentAmherst (#2)Test-OptionalOngoingSwarthmore (#4)Test-OptionalReaffirmed for "at least five more years" (Nov. 2025)Bowdoin (#5)Permanently Test-OptionalTest-optional since 1969Pomona (#7)Permanently Test-OptionalMade permanent Nov. 2023Wellesley, Claremont McKenna, CarletonTest-OptionalPolicies confirmedMiddlebury, Wesleyan, Vassar, HamiltonTest-OptionalOngoingBarnardTest-OptionalConfirmed through Fall 2027Bates (#24)Test-OptionalTest-optional since 1984
If a top LAC is your dream school, you likely still have a choice about whether to submit scores. That said, the strategic question of *whether you should* submit (even when it's optional) is a different conversation entirely.
Why Did This Shift Happen So Fast?
The short answer is data. Institutional research teams at school after school ran the same analysis and found the same thing: test scores predict first-year GPA better than high school grades alone.
Dartmouth fired the starting gun in February 2024 by publishing an internal research paper showing SAT/ACT scores explained approximately 22% of the variation in first-year college GPA. That was a stronger result than high school GPA as a standalone predictor, particularly for first-generation and low-income students. Yale Dean Jeremiah Quinlan put it plainly in The Red Pen's reporting: "test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student's performance in Yale courses in every model we have constructed."
Grade inflation is part of the story too. A UC San Diego study, reported by The Y University, found that roughly 25% of incoming freshmen who earned a perfect 4.0 in high school math were placed into remedial coursework upon arrival. When a high school GPA no longer reliably signals college readiness, admissions offices need something else. Adding SAT scores to GPA improves predictive capacity for college performance by over 19%.
The equity argument is the most counterintuitive piece. Test-optional policies were designed to help low-income and first-generation students. The internal data at multiple schools suggested the opposite was happening: without test scores, admissions readers were leaning more heavily on essays, recommendation letters, and extracurriculars, which correlate more strongly with family wealth than standardized tests do. Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock put it directly in a widely cited statement: tests "can be especially helpful in identifying students from less-resourced backgrounds who would succeed at Dartmouth but might otherwise be missed in a test-optional environment."
Peer-institution monitoring did the rest. Once Dartmouth moved and Harvard followed two months later, each subsequent reinstatement gave the next school cover to do the same thing. More than 20 highly selective institutions have now reinstated requirements or announced plans to do so.
FairTest and test-optional advocates push back, noting that a University of Chicago study found GPA was five times better than ACT scores at predicting college graduation. They also point out, correctly, that 90% of all four-year colleges are still test-optional. These aren't bad arguments. But the institutions driving the reinstatement trend aren't primarily interested in predicting graduation rates for their entire student body. They're trying to differentiate between thousands of applicants with near-identical transcripts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which Ivy League schools require the SAT or ACT for 2026-2027?
Six of eight Ivy League schools require the SAT or ACT for students applying in fall 2026 for fall 2027 enrollment: Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell, and UPenn. Princeton is test-optional for one final year before requiring scores starting with the 2027-2028 cycle. Columbia is permanently test-optional.
Does Yale require the SAT for the Class of 2031?
Yes. Yale's official admissions page now states that all first-year and transfer applicants must submit ACT or SAT scores. The previous test-flexible policy, which allowed AP or IB scores as substitutes, ended with the May 27, 2026 announcement. The ACT Science section is optional; ACT Writing is not required.
Which top colleges are still test-optional in 2026-2027?
Several highly selective schools remain test-optional: Columbia, Duke, Northwestern, University of Chicago, Notre Dame, Rice, Emory, Vanderbilt, Washington University in St. Louis, USC, and virtually all top-25 liberal arts colleges including Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, and Pomona. All UC campuses are permanently test-blind.
Should I submit SAT or ACT scores to a test-optional school?
Generally yes, if your scores are at or above the school's middle 50% range. Even at schools where scores are optional, submitted scores tend to correlate with stronger outcomes. Compass Test Prep's tracker is a good resource for finding middle 50% ranges by school. A score at or below the 25th percentile for a given school usually isn't worth submitting.
Is the test-optional era over?
For the most selective national universities, largely yes. For the broader universe of American four-year colleges, no. FairTest reports that 2,088 out of 2,248 ranked schools are still test-optional or test-free for Fall 2026. The reinstatement trend is concentrated at schools with acceptance rates below 20%.
What to Do Next
1. Audit every school on your list right now. Don't rely on what you read last year. Yale flipped on May 27, 2026. Cornell reinstated for this very cycle. Go to the official admissions page for every school on your list and confirm the current policy. Compass Test Prep's testing spotlight is updated frequently and a solid secondary check.
2. Register for the August or October SAT if you haven't hit your target score. If any test-required school is on your list and you don't have a score yet, or want to improve, the August SAT is your first realistic shot this cycle. College Board's registration deadlines typically fall about five weeks before test date.
3. Look up the middle 50% SAT range for every school on your list. Your score landing in the 75th percentile or above is where submitting becomes a genuine strength. Falling below the 25th percentile at a test-optional school is usually a reason to omit the score entirely.
4. If you're applying to a UC, don't bother with any of this. Berkeley, UCLA, and every other UC campus is permanently test-blind. Scores play zero role in admissions and aren't accepted.
5. For LACs and holdout schools, still take the test. Policies shift. Swarthmore is test-optional through at least five more years, but "optional" means submitting a strong score still helps. At schools like Harvard where scores are required but a narrow hardship exception exists, the exception is genuinely narrow. Assume you need a score.
The landscape today is simpler than it looks: if your list includes any of the schools in the test-required column above, the SAT or ACT is no longer a choice. And if you're aiming at the top of the selectivity pyramid anywhere, taking the test seriously is still the right call even where it's technically optional.