Harvard announced that applicants for the College Class of 2025 will not be required to submit standardized test scores as part of the admissions application. This is a temporary change and differs from the school’s March announcement that stated that this year’s applicants would not be penalized for failing to submit Advance Placement or SAT subject test Scores. The recent announcement is routed in the continued difficulty in administering testing due to COVID-19 and recent civil rights advocates beliefs that current practices “unfairly penalize students of color.”
TEAM Education expert analysis:
While many schools like Harvard have changed their test reporting requirements for all applicants in the 2020-21 application pool, we encourage international applicants to submit relevant national testing results from their home country and/or US based standardized testing if at all possible. Many college admissions directors feel that, “standardized testing provides “meaningful context” for evaluating applicants from very different high schools.”
This is especially important for applicants that attend international schools as they are less visited and, thus less familiar. Additionally, testing affirms an international student’s English language proficiency and provides a measure by which schools can evaluate a student’s ability to perform at the college level.