Pencils Down… for Good? The Expansion of Test-Optional Policy After COVID-19

Test-optional admissions policies have been steadily, though slowly, expanding throughout higher education institutions for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, sparked a rapid expansion of institutions adopting test-optional policy. Using a diffusion of innovations framework, this study assesses the institutional characteristics that shaped test-optional policy adoption of institutions adopting the policy before and after spring 2020. We find that COVID adopters are more ethnically diverse, more likely to be public, have higher test scores, and graduation rates, and lower admissions rates and percentage of financial aid coming from Pell Grants than pre-COVID adopters.