Hampshire College Will Go ‘Test Blind’

Hundreds of colleges are test-optional. Hampshire College is going “test blind.”

On Wednesday the small liberal-arts college announced that it would no longer consider an applicant’s ACT or SAT score in admissions and financial-aid decisions. “If it’s sent, we won’t put it in their files,” said Meredith Twombly, Hampshire’s dean of admissions and financial aid.

Hampshire, in Amherst, Mass., has not required standardized tests since it opened, in 1970, though applicants were told that the admissions office would consider any scores it received. In recent years 60 to 80 percent of applicants submitted scores, according to the college.

But recent research convinced Hampshire officials that ACT and SAT scores did not help identify applicants who were most likely to thrive on the campus. Last fall Ms. Twombly asked faculty members for the names of successful third- and fourth-year students, many of whom were later interviewed.

“A picture started to emerge,” Ms. Twombly said. “They were hard working, strong writers, mostly, and passionate learners. There weren’t patterns with their ACT or SAT scores.”

It’s worth remembering that Hampshire students do not get letter grades. Instead, they receive narrative evaluations from professors. “We have an innovative approach to education, and these test scores really contradict all that,” Ms. Twombly said.

Bob Schaeffer, public-education director for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, known as FairTest, wrote in an email that, to the best of his knowledge, Hampshire’s policy was unique.

Back in 2005, Sarah Lawrence College stopped using test scores in admissions, a decision that, as its president at the time wrote, put the institution in “jeopardy” with U.S. News & World Report. Last year Sarah Lawrence adopted a conventional test-optional policy. It now considers scores from applicants who choose to send them.