McGraw Hall, home of Cornell's history department
This is a two-part series on Admissions and Financial Aid. Part I covers standardized testing in Admissions and Part II will cover Cornell’s financial aid capacity. Both affect Cornell’s ability to attract new students.
On April 22, Provost Michael Kotlikoff announced that standardized tests will be required for students seeking to be admitted in Fall 2026 and thereafter. The students admitted for Fall 2025 will still apply under the test optional standards for admission.
The Provost appointed a Task Force on Standardized Testing in Admissions to review the data measuring the impact of this test-optional or “no test” approach. The task force found that both the SAT and ACT proved to be a good predictor of freshman year academic success and gained widespread use throughout the nation. The agencies that administer the SAT and ACT suspended administering tests in 2020 due to COVID-19. As a result, Cornell temporarily suspended using standardized tests in its admission decisions.
Under the University Bylaws, each college faculty controls its own admissions process. As Cornell returned to in person instruction post COVID, each college took its own approach to standardized tests. The College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell Engineering, the College of Human Ecology, the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations will consider test scores, if submitted. However, while the submission of SAT and/or ACT scores is optional, it is recommended. For students applying to enroll in fall 2025, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Architecture, Art and Planning, and the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business do not consider standardized test scores.
“While it may seem counterintuitive, considering these test scores actually promotes access to students from a wider range of backgrounds and circumstances,” said Provost Michael I. Kotlikoff. “Our analysis indicates that instituting the testing requirement likely enhances, rather than diminishes, our ability to identify and admit qualified students.”
Cornell asked entering students to self-report their SAT scores. These data show that only students with high scores shared them with Cornell. However, there were students with high scores that were not shared.
The Task Force’s report concluded that returning to requiring tests would be beneficial to students. In general, students attending schools (such as schools in rural areas) that do not have a strong track record of feeding students to Cornell are disadvantaged by the absence of standardized test scores.
Cornell joins other peer schools that decided to return to requiring standardized testing, including MIT, Yale, Dartmouth, and Brown. Columbia and Stanford have decided to remain test optional for now.
