PROVIDENCE – Prospective students seeking admission into Brown University will now again have to submit their standardized test scores to receive consideration from the Ivy League institution.
The university formally announced Tuesday that President Christina H. Paxson accepted multiple recommendations from Brown’s Ad Hoc Committee on Admissions Policies, one of them reinstating the requirement that applicants for first-year admission submit standardized tests scores. The requirement will go into effect starting with the next admission cycle of students enrolling in the 2025-26 academic year.
Brown
had suspended accepting standardized test scores for admission back in May 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic’s early onset, and hadn’t reinstated that policy until now. The reason at the time for Brown to halt accepting ACT or SAT scores from applicants was because in-person testing was significantly limited during the pandemic and the university did not want to place a barrier in the admission process for prospective students.
Now, based on the committee’s analysis, Brown says the standardized test requirement will return for applicants as they provide “an important piece of information” about the applicant’s performance in context of available opportunities, as well as serving as a “strong predictor” of the students’ academic performance once enrolled at Brown. Also, the university says the analyzed data suggested “unintended adverse outcomes” of test-optional policies in the admissions process, possibly undermining the goal to increase access into higher education institutions.
“The committee’s report makes a compelling case that being ‘test-optional’ can disadvantage talented students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, who are often from high schools that are less well known to our Office of College Admission,” Paxson wrote Tuesday to the campus community. “Test scores offer an important piece of information among a prevalence of A grades, and for less-resourced high schools that might not offer programs and activities that allow students to distinguish themselves.”
Paxson also wrote that reinstating the test requirement for admission consideration “will help Brown identify promising students from the fullest range of backgrounds.”
Brown’s decisions to accept the ad hoc committee’s recommendations followed the group’s work over the past six months analyzing and deliberating data. The university will also keep its current practices for applicants with family connections, including “legacy” students. Brown says the share of legacy applicants decreased by one-quarter over the last six years, and the share of legacy students in Brown’s enrolled classes declined by about 30%. In Brown’s 2027 class, 8% of students are legacies, it says.
However, Brown says the committee recommends further data evaluation on applicants with family connections and seek additional input from the campus community on any possible changes to the policy.
The university will also continue to offer its “Early Decision” option, which Brown says is “attractive” to prospective students and contributed to enrollment efforts that is both qualified and diverse.
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette.
