Dive Brief:
- The University System of Georgia will reinstate standardized testing requirements at four more of its 26 institutions for applicants seeking admission for the 2026-27 academic year, a spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.
- During a Tuesday board meeting, regents voted to require prospective students to submit SAT or ACT scores when applying to Augusta University, Georgia State University, Georgia Southern University and Kennesaw State University.
- Three of the system's most selective institutions — the University of Georgia, Georgia College & State University and Georgia Institute of Technology — already require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. The four colleges reviving test requirements for fall 2026 accept the majority of their applicants.
Dive Insight:
When the pandemic shut down the sites where students typically took standardized tests, hundreds of institutions waived their admissions test requirements.
Since then, however, colleges are increasingly weighing a return to the tests. And Tuesday’s meeting wasn’t the first time Georgia regents have discussed reviving testing requirements.
The university system reinstated the requirements for fall 2022 admissions. But applications fell because prospective students stopped short of completing applications when it came to including a test score, according to The Associated Press. One top system official told regents in 2023 that enforcing test requirements again would likely drive applicants to other colleges, the publication reported.
The board ultimately voted that year to return to test-optional at all but the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech through the 2024-25 year. Then, Georgia College & State University again began requiring an SAT or ACT for admission in fall 2024.
Regents issued another extension last month, waiving the requirement for all but those three universities through the 2025-26 academic year.
System officials have assured students and their families that the waiver would not end preemptively, System Chancellor Sonny Perdue told the board in April.
Augusta, Georgia State, Georgia Southern and Kennesaw State will instead revive SAT and ACT requirements for applicants seeking admission in fall 2026, after the current testing waiver expires.
“The standardized testing will be a great instrument for us to determine the strengths and weaknesses of every student coming in,” Perdue said Tuesday, according to local news sources.
The board also voted to allow the system’s remaining 19 institutions the option to require test scores.
More than 1,900 U.S. colleges and universities are not requiring standardized test scores for fall 2025 admissions, according to FairTest, which advocates for limited application of entrance exams.
But selective colleges are steadily returning to the practice. Ivy League institutions, including Harvard and Cornell universities, have cited concerns that test-optional policies are leading to some students withholding exam scores that may have boosted their applications.
