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Every Ivy League School Now Requires Standardized Tests. What Score Do You Actually Need?
Columbia University just became the last domino to fall. Last week, the university officially announced that starting with the 2027-2028 application cycle, undergraduate applicants to Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science will be required to submit SAT or ACT scores. Test-optional is over at Columbia and now it is official that every ivy league school now requires standardized tests.
What makes this particularly striking is that Columbia was the school that said it would never go back. In 2023, while other universities were quietly hedging, Columbia publicly declared that test-optional would be its permanent policy, arguing that students are "dynamic, multidimensional individuals who cannot be defined by a single factor." That position lasted about two years.
With Columbia's reversal, every Ivy League institution has now returned to mandatory standardized testing. The test-optional era at the most selective American universities is effectively over.
Barnard College has said it will maintain its test-optional policy at least through 2027, and Columbia's School of General Studies has not yet announced a change, but the core undergraduate programs at every Ivy are now back to requiring scores.
Why the Reversal?
The reasoning universities are giving is consistent across institutions. After several years of internal data collection during the test-optional period, schools found that standardized test scores remain a meaningful predictor of academic success in college. Research drawing on student outcomes across highly selective universities found that test scores correlate positively with college GPA, and that students with stronger scores are more likely to gain admission to top graduate programs and land competitive employment afterward.
This finding has become a shared conclusion among Princeton, Cornell, Yale, and others. Even the University of California system, which went fully test-blind, is now facing internal pressure from faculty to reconsider.
There is also an unintended consequence that universities noticed during the test-optional years: when submitting scores is voluntary, only students who are highly confident in their scores tend to submit them. This self-selection effect quietly drove the reported score ranges at selective schools significantly upward, making the published benchmarks harder to interpret and arguably raising the implicit bar for everyone.
What Scores Are Actually Competitive?
Looking at the most recent Common Data Set figures from each Ivy League school, here is a clear-eyed picture of where scores need to land.
SAT: 1500 Is the Floor, Not the Target
Across most Ivy League schools, the SAT median sits in the 1530 to 1540 range. Princeton, Yale, Cornell, and Columbia all cluster there. Dartmouth and Brown come in slightly lower at 1520. At Columbia, the median among those who submitted scores is 1540, which is notably higher than the 1505 median recorded the last time Columbia required scores in 2019, a direct result of the self-selection effect described above.
The distribution data tells the fuller story. At Columbia, 99% of SAT submitters scored between 1400 and 1600. At Cornell, that figure is 97.4%. At Princeton, 96%. The practical takeaway: if your SAT is below 1400, your application will face a steep uphill climb at any Ivy. A score of 1500 is closer to a minimum for serious competitiveness than a target.
ACT: 35 Is the New Normal
The ACT picture is even more compressed. With the exception of Cornell and Dartmouth, where the median is 34, every other Ivy League school reports an ACT median of 35. At Columbia, 100% of students who submitted ACT scores fell in the 30 to 36 range. At Princeton and Harvard, that figure is 98%.
Scoring below 33 on the ACT puts you in a very thin slice of admitted students. It is not impossible, but it requires the rest of the application to carry significant weight.
School by School Highlights
Princeton is the most score-compressed school in the group. The SAT 25th percentile is 1490, meaning even students admitted for special talents or diverse backgrounds almost never come in below that mark. The ACT median and 75th percentile are both 35.
Harvard has not published detailed SAT percentile breakdowns, but ACT data reveals the picture: the 25th percentile is 34 and the 75th is 36, with 98% of submitters scoring 30 or above. There is no meaningful score range at Harvard below the very top.
Yale shows slightly more spread. The SAT 25th percentile is 1470, and roughly 9% of submitted scores fell in the 1200 to 1399 range, suggesting Yale is somewhat more willing to admit students with lower scores when the rest of the profile is exceptional, particularly in arts, humanities, or unusual backgrounds.
Penn's CDS does not break down total SAT scores, but the math section data is revealing: the median SAT Math score is 790, the 75th percentile is 800, and 98% of submitters scored 700 or above on Math. If you are applying to Penn, near-perfect SAT Math is essentially expected.
Cornell has one of the lower submission rates among the Ivies, but students who did submit were disproportionately strong: the SAT 25th percentile is 1510, higher than Yale and Brown, precisely because students who were less confident opted out.
Brown's SAT 25th percentile is 1470 and the median is 1520, making it slightly more accessible on paper. Given Brown's emphasis on self-directed learning and intellectual passion, a candidate with a compelling application can remain competitive closer to the lower end of the range.
Dartmouth is the most flexible in the group on scores. The SAT 25th percentile is 1440 and the ACT 25th percentile is 32, with roughly 15% of applicants scoring in the 1200 to 1399 range. Dartmouth places strong emphasis on community, athletics, and Early Decision applicants, which likely accounts for more variation in the admitted pool.
Now that Every Ivy League School Now Requires Standardized Tests, What This Means for Chinese and International Applicants
Columbia's application volume recently hit a record high of over 61,000, likely inflated by the test-optional policy attracting students who would not have applied under a score requirement. When Dartmouth and Yale reinstated testing requirements, their application numbers dropped by 11% and 12.6% respectively. Brown saw its lowest application volume since 2019 after reinstating score requirements last cycle. A similar contraction is likely at Columbia when mandatory testing takes full effect in 2027.
For Chinese and other international students, the return to mandatory testing is genuinely two-sided. The challenge is real: a competitive score at these schools demands sustained preparation and strong performance. But Chinese applicants have historically performed well on standardized tests, and in a system that now explicitly weights scores, that strength becomes a clearer advantage than it was during the years when submitting scores was optional.
The planning implication is clear: aim to complete your SAT or ACT before the start of 12th grade if at all possible. This leaves time for a retake if needed and removes one major variable during the most demanding period of the application process. The upcoming summer is a natural window to build toward a competitive score, and given that mandatory testing is now universal at the Ivy League, it is a window worth taking seriously.
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