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Test-Optional vs. Test-Blind Colleges: What’s the Difference?

What’s Covered:

 

While taking the SAT or ACT used to be a necessity for any college applicant, more universities have been reconsidering the role of standardized testing in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic caused many testing days to be canceled, and debates over the effectiveness and fairness of standardized tests have become more prevalent. 

 

In response to this, many colleges have embraced test-optional admissions policies, including top colleges such as the Ivy League schools. To avoid any confusion in the admissions process, it’s important to know what exactly a test-optional school is — and how it differs from a test-blind college. 

 

In this post, we’ll be explaining the difference between test-optional and test-blind, and what these policies mean for students.

 

What Do “Test-Optional” and “Test-Blind” Mean?

 

Test-optional schools allow applicants to choose whether or not to submit SAT or ACT scores as a part of their application. While choosing not to submit a test score does not harm an applicant, submitting a high test score can give an applicant a boost in the admissions process.

 

Test-blind schools, on the other hand, do not consider test scores in any case. Even perfect scores of 1600 on the SAT or 36 on the ACT will not give an applicant any admissions advantage. There are not too many colleges that are test-blind, and most of the policy changes have only happened recently — Caltech, for example, went test-blind in Fall 2020.  

 

Top 20 List of Test-Optional Universities for 2020-2021

 

Below is a list of the top 20 schools with test-optional admissions for the 2022-2023 cycle based on CollegeVine’s national rankings (apply the test-optional filter to your list). 

 

School Name

CollegeVine National Ranking

Location

Stanford University

1

Stanford, CA

Harvard University

2

Cambridge, MA

Yale University

3

New Haven, CT

Princeton University

4

Princeton, NJ

MIT

5

Cambridge, MA

Duke University

6

Durham, NC

UChicago

7

Chicago, IL

UPenn

8

Philadelphia, PA

Brown University

9

Providence, RI

Olin College of Engineering

11

Needham, MA

Dartmouth College

12

Hanover, NH

Northwestern University

13

Evanston, IL

Cornell University

14

Ithaca, NY

Columbia University

15

New York, NY

Rice University

16

Houston, TX

Vanderbilt University

18

Nashville, TN

Johns Hopkins University

21

Baltimore, MD

University of Notre Dame

22

Notre Dame, IN

WashU

23

Saint Louis, MO

University of Southern California

27

Los Angeles, CA

 

Top 10 List of Test-Optional Liberal Arts Colleges for 2022-2023

 

Below is a list of the top 10 schools with test-optional admissions for the 2022-2023 cycle based on CollegeVine’s national rankings (apply the test-optional and liberal arts college filters to your list)

 

School Name

CollegeVine National Ranking

Location

Williams College

17

Williamstown, MA

Pomona College

19

Claremont, CA

Bowdoin College

20

Brunswick, ME

Amherst College

24

Amherst, MA

Wellesley College

25

Wellesley, MA

Claremont McKenna College

26

Claremont, CA

Swarthmore College

29

Swarthmore, PA

Middlebury College

32

Middlebury, VT

Washington and Lee University

33

Lexington, VA

Haverford College

34

Haverford, PA

 

Stay up to date as colleges and universities continue to shift and revise their admissions policies with CollegeVine. Our school hub lets you search colleges by all types of factors, including their test policies. 

 

Top 10 List of Test-Blind Schools for 2022-2023

 

Below is a list of the top 10 schools with test-blind admissions for the 2022-2023 cycle based on CollegeVine’s national rankings (apply the SAT/ACT test policy; “not used” filter to your list)

 

School Name

CollegeVine National Ranking

Location

California Institute of Technology

10

Pasadena, CA

UC Berkeley

54

Berkeley, CA

UCLA

55

Los Angeles, CA

Pitzer College

87

Claremont, CA

UCSD

99

San Diego, CA

Dickinson College

100

Carlisle, PA

UC Irvine

112

Irvine, CA

Worcester Polytechnic Institute

118

Worcester, MA

Reed College

122

Portland, OR

UC Davis

128

Davis, CA

California Polytechnic State University

132

Chico, CA

 

How Do Test-Optional/Test-Blind Policies Affect My Chances of Admission?

 

Colleges with both test-optional and test-blind policies prioritize other metrics of academic performance besides standardized tests, such as GPA, course rigor, and class rank. They also have a more holistic admissions philosophy in general, so they give more importance to applicants’ extracurriculars and essays.

 

Unless you’re only applying to a test-blind college, you should try to take the SAT or ACT at least once. A strong standardized test score will help bolster your application to a test-optional school, and is a great way to differentiate yourself from the competing candidates. And if you don’t score well, you can always apply test-optional without any penalty. 

 

Every college has different benchmarks for what they consider a strong SAT or ACT score. You will generally want to have a score within the top 25th percentile of scores for accepted students, but it can be hard to tell if you fall in that range. That’s where CollegeVine’s chancing engine comes in. This free admissions calculator will predict your odds of getting into your dream school — including test-optional and test-blind schools — and offer advice on how to improve your applicant profile. Sign up for a free CollegeVine account to get started!

 


Short Bio
The college applications process is all about responding to one question: who are you? I am passionate about helping students craft a creative answer. I have been helping students gain admission to the T25 schools of their dreams since 2018. Soon after graduating from Georgetown University with a B.A. in History and minors in French and Russian, I made college advising my career. I currently mentor students through one-on-one consulting sessions, blog posts, and admissions livestreams, in addition to tutoring in humanities subjects. When I am not advising, you can probably find me taking a road trip or reading a novel in French.