Cornell University is reinstating the standardized testing admissions requirement for applicants seeking admission for Fall 2026.
Cornell’s decision to bring back the standardized testing requirement comes after a multi-year evaluation by its Task Force on Standardized Testing in Admissions, according to the Cornell Chronicle, the university’s official news outlet. For the fall 2025 admissions cycle, standardized testing will remain optional.
The task force found that test scores were a valuable metric for determining the likelihood of student academic success at Cornell after measuring them alongside other predictive factors. Test-optional admissions also encouraged students to withhold test scores from their applications, even when they would have benefitted from disclosing their test scores, the task force found.
“While it may seem counterintuitive, considering these test scores actually promotes access to students from a wider range of backgrounds and circumstances,” said Cornell provost Michael Kotlikoff. “Our analysis indicates that instituting the testing requirement likely enhances, rather than diminishes, our ability to identify and admit qualified students.”
Cornell opted to lift its standardized-testing admissions requirement during the height of the Covid pandemic in April 2020. The provost convened the task force in spring 2023, and its report summarized the findings from Cornell’s fall 2021 and 2022 academic cohorts. Cornell’s office of institutional research and planning updated the report in spring 2024 and the findings largely mirrored the initial report.
Both analyses concluded that eliminating the test score requirement did not increase diversity, and students who submitted test scores performed better academically than students who opted against doing so.
Last fall, only 24 percent of Cornell applicants submitted test scores, down from 28 percent the year before and 31 percent in fall 2021. Of the applicants who were accepted last fall, 42 percent submitted test scores, and 48 percent enrolled, both down slightly from the year before. The higher rate of acceptance for those who submitted test scores is potentially attributable to stronger applications across various factors considered.
Survey data taken in Fall 2022 indicated that 91 percent of Cornell students took a standardized test, and 70 percent of them did so multiple times. Among students with at least a 1400 SAT score, white and Asian students were more likely than black students to submit their results.
The academic differences between the students who sent in test scores and those who did not remained constant over the three year period of test-optional admissions data, the task force found. Students that received admission without submitting test scores were more likely to fall out of good academic standing and received lower GPAs than their classmates.
Cornell becomes the latest Ivy-League university to revert back to standardized testing admissions requirements after observing the correlation between test scores and academic outcomes and the failure of test-optional admissions to boost student body diversity.
Yale, Dartmouth, and Harvard have brought back testing requirements in recent months after experimenting with the test-optional admissions standard over the past few years. Each university observed that test-optional requirements harmed disadvantaged applicants and the predictive power of standardized tests relative to academic success.