Harvard will again require SAT or ACT, reversing promise of test-optional admissions through class of 2030

Harvard University will require standardized testing to be considered for admissions, reversing a COVID-era policy.

According to the Harvard Crimson, students applying to be part of the Harvard class of 2029 will be required to take either the SAT or ACT in order for their application to be considered.

Harvard’s class of 2024 will submit their applications this fall and winter, giving students several months to take either test.

In a statement explaining the decision, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Hopi E. Hoekstra wrote “standardized tests are a means for all students, regardless of their background and life experience, to provide information that is predictive of success in college and beyond.”

[RELATED: Yale reverses ‘test-optional’ admissions policy]

“More information, especially such strongly predictive information, is valuable for identifying talent from across the socioeconomic range,” Hoekstra added. “With this change, we hope to strengthen our ability to identify these promising students.”

According to the report, a majority of undergraduates attending Harvard in the past four years haven’t submitted standardized test scores.

Harvard previously committed to remaining test-optional through the class of 2030, but opted to make the change one year earlier.

Some students weren’t too fond of the reversal to standardized testing.

The Harvard Generational African American Students Association wrote in a statement on Instagram that the change “strikes at the very heart of the progress made toward achieving true equal opportunity within higher education institutions such as Harvard.”

[RELATED: Ivy League schools get rid of deans’ lists, say they cause too much ‘stress and anxiety’]

“This decision also compounds the challenges already faced by low-income and minority students in the wake of affirmative action being overruled,” the group wrote.

Harvard joins several Ivy League colleges that have recently gone back to standardized testing, including Dartmouth College and Yale University, as Campus Reform has reported.