The Test-Optional Paradox: Why Published SAT Scores Keep Rising Even as Fewer Students Submit Them
March 5, 2026
How a well-intentioned policy shift created a statistical illusion and what it means for your college search.
Here is something that should not be possible: over the past five years, the percentage of enrolled students at selective colleges who submit SAT scores dropped nearly in half, from about 66 percent to 37 percent. In any normal world, this mass exodus from standardized testing would cause reported score profiles to shift, scatter, or at least hold steady.
Instead, they went up. Significantly.
At the roughly 113 most selective colleges in the country, the average 25th-percentile SAT composite score rose from 1,267 in 2015 to 1,401 in 2024, an increase of 134 points. The gains accelerated sharply after 2020, precisely when test-optional policies went mainstream. This is not because today鈥檚 freshmen are dramatically smarter than their predecessors. It鈥檚 because the students who still choose to submit their scores are, on average, the ones with the highest marks.
Welcome to the test-optional paradox: a statistical illusion that is quietly reshaping how families interpret one of the most visible data points in college admissions.
How the Illusion Works
The logic is straightforward, even if its implications are not. When a school goes test-optional, students make a rational calculation: if my scores are well above the school鈥檚 published range, I submit them to strengthen my application. If my scores are below the range, or even at the lower end of it, I withhold them.
The result is a form of selection bias. The pool of score-submitters is no longer a representative cross-section of the entering class; it is skewed heavily toward the top. When schools then publish their 25th-to-75th percentile score ranges, as they are required to by federal law, those ranges reflect only the self-selected submitters, not the full class.
The data makes this mechanism visible. Between 2019 and 2021, when COVID-era test-optional policies took hold across virtually all selective schools, the average SAT submission rate dropped from 65 percent to 36 percent in a single cycle. Simultaneously, the average 25th-percentile composite score jumped by 34 points, more than in the previous four years combined.
The ACT tells the same story in even starker terms. Submission rates fell from 42 percent to 18 percent over the decade, with most of the decline concentrated after 2020. The remaining submitters are an increasingly rarefied group.
The Shrinking Score Window
One of the most telling consequences of this dynamic is what has happened to the interquartile range鈥攖he gap between a school鈥檚 25th and 75th percentile scores. This range used to be a useful proxy for the breadth of academic preparation in an incoming class. It is becoming something else entirely.
In 2015, the average gap between the 25th and 75th percentile SAT Math scores at selective colleges was 100 points (642 to 742). By 2019, it had narrowed slightly to 92 points (676 to 769). By 2024, it had compressed to just 68 points (704 to 772).
That 32 percent compression happened because the 25th percentile rose steeply, jumping 62 points, while the 75th percentile barely moved, gaining only 30 points. This makes sense: there is a ceiling effect at the top (you cannot score much above 800), but the floor of reported scores keeps rising as lower-scoring students opt out of submitting.
For families, this means that a school鈥檚 published score range is no longer a reliable guide to 鈥渨here you need to be鈥 to get in. The 25th percentile of submitted scores might be 700 on SAT Math, but the 25th percentile of all enrolled students, including non-submitters, could plausibly be 50 to 80 points lower.
A 76-Point Spread: Not All 鈥淭est-Optional鈥 Looks the Same
One of the most underappreciated aspects of the test-optional landscape is how much variation exists across schools that nominally share the same policy. At MIT, which reinstated its testing requirement in 2022, 83 percent of enrolled freshmen submitted SAT scores in 2024. At Trinity College, just 7 percent did.
Among the selective schools in our data, the 2024 submission rates ranged from a low of 7 percent to a high of 83 percent. The median was about 33 percent, meaning that at a typical selective school, roughly two-thirds of enrolled freshmen provided no test scores at all.
This creates an apples-to-oranges problem when families compare schools. When Harvard reports a 25th-percentile math score of 770 based on 54 percent of its class submitting, that number means something very different from Georgetown鈥檚 score range, which is based on 78 percent submitting, or Bowdoin鈥檚, based on 31 percent. The lower the submission rate, the more inflated the published scores are likely to be.
Several patterns emerge from this spectrum. Public universities in states with SAT requirements (Florida, Georgia) tend to have high submission rates regardless of policy. The military academies require testing. A handful of elite privates, MIT, Georgetown, Yale, Brown, maintain relatively high submission rates, either because they require testing or because their applicant pools are strong enough that most students benefit from submitting. At the other end, many liberal arts colleges and a few large urban schools (Northeastern, Tulane) have submission rates below 25 percent.
What This Means for Your College Search
Published score ranges are inflated at most schools. When fewer than half the class submits scores, the reported 25th-to-75th percentile range overstates where the typical enrolled student falls. If your scores are somewhat below a school鈥檚 published range, you may be more competitive than the numbers suggest, especially if you have strong grades and extracurriculars. Do not let an inflated score profile scare you away from applying.
Check the submission rate, not just the scores. The Common Data Set, which most schools publish annually, includes both the score ranges and the percentage of students who submitted. A school reporting a 25th-percentile SAT Math of 720 with a 70 percent submission rate is telling you something very different from a school reporting 720 with a 20 percent submission rate. The first is closer to a real floor; the second is a floor for a self-selected subset.
The 鈥渟ubmit or don鈥檛鈥 decision matters more than you think. Test-optional does not mean test-blind. At most schools, strong scores still help. If your scores are at or above a school鈥檚 published range, keeping in mind that the range is inflated, submitting them is likely advantageous. If your scores are significantly below, withholding them may be the right choice, but understand that other parts of your application will need to carry more weight.
The trend is not static. A growing number of selective schools are reinstating test requirements. MIT did so in 2022. Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, and Georgetown followed. If this trend continues, submission rates will rise, published score ranges will come back down to earth, and the paradox may partially unwind. Families should pay attention to each school鈥檚 current testing policy, as it can change from year to year.
The Bigger Picture
The test-optional paradox is, at its root, a transparency problem. Published score data was designed to help families compare schools and calibrate their expectations. When the underlying sample becomes deeply unrepresentative, when only the top scorers contribute to the statistics, that data stops serving its original purpose.
This does not mean test-optional policies are inherently bad. They were designed to reduce barriers for students who lack access to testing or test preparation, and there is evidence that they have broadened applicant pools. But the side effect, a statistical mirage that makes every school look more academically exclusive than it actually is, is real, and families deserve to understand it.
The next time you look at a school鈥檚 SAT range and feel your stomach drop, take a breath. Ask yourself: how many students does this actually represent? The answer, at most selective schools, is fewer than you think.
Methodology: This analysis draws on IPEDS institutional data (2015鈥2024) covering approximately 1,975 institutions, filtered to the ~113 classified as Very Selective, Most Selective, or Extremely Selective in the College Insights panel dataset. SAT composite scores are calculated as SAT Math + Evidence-Based Reading and Writing. Submission rates reflect the percentage of enrolled first-time, degree-seeking students who submitted SAT or ACT scores, as reported to IPEDS. Score percentiles represent averages across all selective institutions in each year.
