Does reporting scores help disadvantaged applicants? One 2025 study

At one elite campus in a 2025 study, disadvantaged high achievers who reported scores had a 10.2 percent admit rate, against 2.9 percent.

A 2025 study of admissions at one elite college campus found that high-achieving applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds were admitted far more often when they reported test scores. The result is interesting, but the study's own design limits what it can prove.

This review is based on the paper's abstract and public metadata, not the full text.

What the study found

The paper, "How Test Optional Policies in College Admissions Disproportionately Harm High Achieving Applicants from Disadvantaged Backgrounds" (2025), reports three main results.

First, SAT and ACT scores predicted first-year college GPA equally well across income and other demographic groups at the campus studied.

Second, among high-achieving applicants from less advantaged backgrounds, those who reported scores had a much higher chance of admission. The abstract puts the increase at a factor of 3.6x, from 2.9 percent to 10.2 percent.

Third, high-achieving first-generation applicants raised their chances by 2.4x by reporting scores.

The authors conclude that elite colleges read test scores in the context of an applicant's background. On that basis they argue that score availability can promote social mobility, and that test-optional policies harm these applicants.

How it was done

The abstract describes an analysis of one elite campus, Dartmouth. It compares admission probabilities for applicants who reported scores with those who didn't, and it checks how well scores predict first-year GPA.

The abstract does not give the sample size, the years covered, the data sources, or how "high achieving" and "disadvantaged" were defined. It describes no randomized or quasi-experimental design.

What holds up

The finding that scores predict first-year GPA about equally well across groups is plausible and useful. It speaks to whether scores carry similar information for different kinds of students.

The gap in admit rates between reporters and non-reporters is also a real pattern in this campus's data. It fits the idea that a strong score can help a student whose application would otherwise be hard to read.

What to be careful about

"Harm" is causal language, but the evidence is a comparison. Students choose whether to report. Those who report may differ in ways the comparison can't see, such as the strength of the rest of the application, the quality of counseling, or other factors admissions offices weigh. The jump from 2.9 percent to 10.2 percent describes an association between reporting and admission. It does not show what would happen to a given student who reported or didn't.

One campus does not represent elite colleges. The paper extends its conclusions to elite institutions and to social mobility, yet the evidence comes from a single campus. Results may not carry over to less selective or public schools.

Missing precision. The abstract gives no confidence intervals for the 3.6x and 2.4x figures. Small groups with low base rates can produce unstable ratios, and we can't tell from the abstract how stable these are.

Prediction of GPA covers enrolled students only. Students who were admitted and enrolled are a filtered group, which can distort how well scores appear to predict outcomes.

Funding and context. Dartmouth College is listed as a funder in the metadata. Test-optional policy is also a politically charged topic. No independent replication of this paper was identified.

Our overall read is that the evidence is weak for the causal claim, with medium confidence in that assessment.

What this means for your family

This study does not show that test-optional policies harm disadvantaged applicants in general. It does suggest that, at least at one very selective school, a strong score on file was associated with better admit odds for high-achieving students from less advantaged and first-generation backgrounds.

If your student has strong scores, the study is one reason to consider reporting them, even where tests are optional. Check each college's current policy and its published admissions data first. Policies differ by school and change over time, and a single campus's pattern may not apply to the ones on your list.

If your student's scores are modest, this study does not tell you that leaving them out will hurt. It says nothing about students outside the high-achieving group it studied.

Source

The paper is "How Test Optional Policies in College Admissions Disproportionately Harm High Achieving Applicants from Disadvantaged Backgrounds" (2025): https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20250177.