Ten years after GW shifted to test-optional admissions, experts and officials say the policy has led to more diverse applicants and higher graduation rates for low-income students.

Officials announced in 2015 the University would shift to a test-optional policy for standardized admissions tests to better attract underrepresented groups of students, like first-generation college goers and racial minorities, a move that garnered skepticism from experts who thought other barriers, like high tuition costs, would still stop students from marginalized groups from applying. Ten years later, officials and experts said the policy has led to increased first-generation student enrollment and higher graduation rates for low-income students at GW but could reduce the amount of data available for predicting college success in a student’s application.

University Spokesperson Claire Sabin said the decision to go test-optional in 2015 was part of a University-wide effort to increase the success of lower-income students at GW. Sabin said the policy was implemented to ensure students with “excellent” high school records had a fair chance at GW, even if their test scores were lower than other applicants. Sabin said research indicates test scores show a “high correlation” with family income, thus making it harder for lower-income applicants to compete.

When GW announced the shift to test-optional in 2015, it was a part of a group of three universities, alongside Brandeis and Wake Forest, that did not require scores and were ranked amongst the nation’s top 100 research universities, according to the Washington Post. In 2015, there were over 850 colleges and universities across the country with test-optional policies, increasing to over 2,000 schools in 2025, according to Fairtest and the New York Times.

Former University president Steven Knapp created a task force on access and success in January 2014 in response to then-President Barack Obama’s call to increase higher education opportunities for low-income students. The University decided to switch to a test-optional policy following the task force’s recommendation after they found college success could be accurately determined through other metrics, like high school GPAs.

Sabin said one year after instituting a test-optional policy, applications from first-generation students increased by almost 1,100, while enrollment of first-generation students increased by 14 percent from 2015 to 2016.

In 2023, first-generation students made up 14 percent of the University’s student population, compared to 11.9 percent in 2015, according to a University release.

Sabin also said the number of students receiving Pell grants rose from 13.8 percent in 2015 to almost 15 percent in 2016. She added that the trend continued in 2025, with 21 percent of GW students now being Pell-eligible.

As of 2023, 16 percent of all degree or certificate-seeking undergraduate students at GW received Pell grants, according to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. 

Sabin also said the test-optional policy has helped the University identify students who are “better prepared” for GW, while also creating greater “equity” but did not specify how. She said prior to the policy’s implementation in 2015, the University had an overall graduation rate of 83.7 percent but a rate of only 77.7 percent for Pell-eligible students. She said following the implementation of the test-optional policy, the overall graduation rate increased to 84.05 percent, with the Pell-eligible rate rising to 84.6 percent as of 2025.

Sabin said aside from the test-optional policy, investments in financial aid and programming sponsored by the Office of Student Success, which officials launched at the recommendation of the task force, is responsible for closing the gap in graduation rates.

The OSS sends faculty student feedback forms, which are meant to identify struggling students and connect them with advisers, the Academic Commons and other resources.

In 2015, the median high school GPA of incoming students was 3.64. In 2016, it rose to 3.66, while 21 percent of students chose to apply test-optional, according to a University release.

In 2024, the mean high school GPA of incoming students was 3.66, and 64 percent applied without scores, according to the University’s annual enrollment update.

A 2020 study found that high school GPAs are five times better at predicting college graduation rates than ACT scores, which fluctuate dramatically depending on a student’s background. The study found that the effect might be because GPAs measure a wider “variety of skills” compared to standardized tests.

Brianna Felegi, an assistant professor of economics at Virginia Tech, said she found in her research that adopting test-optional policies leads to a higher number of applicants eligible for Pell grants and a greater number of applicants from racial minorities.

In 2014, GW’s student body was made up of 2,227 Black students, 1,603 Hispanic students, 61 Native American students and 13,430 white students. In 2024, the number of Black and Hispanic students had increased to 2,699 and 2,647 respectively, while the number of Native American students dropped to 31 and the number of white students fell to 10,749, according to the University’s enrollment data.

The demographic enrollment rates differ from national trends from 2012 to 2022, as national enrollment rates of Black students have plateaued, while white students decreased by 1 percent, Hispanic students dropped by 4 percent and Native American students dropped by 2 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

“This aligns with the idea that many of these schools adopting this policy during this time did it in this effort to increase diversity in their student body,” Felegi said. “And importantly, we don’t see really any changes in these quality measures people are worried about, so retention or graduation rates.”

Felegi also said universities reverting to test-mandatory policies post-COVID-19 is not indicative of a national trend toward reinstating testing policies but rather a “case-by-case” scenario where schools that went test-optional under COVID-19 have begun to feel out whether or not the test-optional policy works for them.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology reinstated its test-mandatory policy in 2022, after going test-optional in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. MIT officials said they brought back the policy because they believe test scores are accurate predictors of college success and that they aid disadvantaged students who may not have access to advanced coursework.

Felegi said she thinks schools like MIT differ from GW because the University chose to go test-optional after an internal review unrelated to the pandemic.

“I think it’s different for a place like GW, who did whatever review of their practices and thought, ‘Okay, we believe it’s the SAT, ACT itself that is restricting certain students from coming,’” Felegi said.

John Friedman, a professor of economics and international and public affairs at Brown University, said in his research, schools lose out on accurate predictors of college success when they stop requiring standardized test scores. Friedman said at Ivy-Plus universities, an unofficial group of highly competitive schools that does not include GW, students admitted without test scores earn grades similar to those who attend with the lowest 10 percent of submitted test scores.

“Test scores are a much better predictor than high school GPA or other such information,” Friedman said in an email.

Friedman said in his research, test scores are not biased against students from less advantaged backgrounds as students who achieve similar scores on tests often end up performing similarly in college, regardless of economic status.

“In other words, a given test score predicts the same level of academic performance, even when students come from very different backgrounds,” Friedman said.

Bruce Sacerdote, an economics professor at Dartmouth University, said his research suggests test-optional policies hurt low-income applicants, as many choose not to submit scores that would boost their chances of admission out of fear that the scores would lower their chances instead. 

Sacerdote said across all the subgroups he studied, test scores were “equally predictive” of academic success, while metrics like recommendation letters and research opportunities are often tilted towards higher-income applicants. He also said test scores were better predictors of academic success than other metrics.

“At Dartmouth, we found that test scores are a very useful way to identify high-achieving students from every walk of life,” Sacerdote said.