With the Common Application now open for the 2024-25 cycle, many families are preparing for a college admissions landscape that is rapidly shifting. The old assumptions—that test-optional policies mean scores are irrelevant, that AP exams are only for credit, and that well-polished essays carry weight—are being upended. Colleges are no longer willing to take applicants at their word. They want proof, not just promises.
The crisis of trust stems from a perfect storm: grade inflation, AI-generated essays, and paid consultants who craft applications. A 2025 report from the University of California, San Diego found that a quarter of freshmen who scored below middle-school level on a math placement exam had perfect 4.0 GPAs in high school math. Inflated grades, as the report notes, are not just misleading—they are lies.
Standardized tests like the SAT and ACT remain the only widely available, authenticated measures of academic preparedness. Yet most colleges stayed test-optional after the pandemic, prioritizing convenience over rigor. But that is changing. Every Ivy League school has now announced a return to test-required admissions, with Columbia—the last holdout—reversing its earlier pledge to remain permanently test-optional.
The data supports this shift. A 2024 study by Opportunity Insights found that SAT and ACT scores are 3.9 times more predictive of first-year college grades than high school GPA. Ignoring such a measure, especially when colleges claim to value authenticity, made little sense. Students have noticed: for the first time since before the pandemic, more applicants submitted test scores than not, with submissions up 10% year-over-year and non-submissions down 6%. Families have realized that withholding a score can hurt, even if it isn't explicitly required.
AP exam scores are also gaining prominence. Selective institutions like Caltech, Stanford, MIT, Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Duke now require, recommend, or use AP scores in admissions decisions. Once used only for placement, these scores now serve as a check on inflated AP class grades—the same logic that is driving the SAT/ACT comeback.
Essays, meanwhile, are falling out of favor. Several universities, including UNC-Chapel Hill, Georgia Tech, and Tulane, have dropped supplemental essays altogether. Duke still requires them but no longer assigns a rating, citing AI and paid consultants that make it impossible to verify authorship. As one admissions official put it, the essay is no longer assumed to be an accurate reflection of the student's writing ability.
Some experts argue that essays should be kept but authenticated, perhaps by comparing them to proctored writing samples like the ACT's optional essay. But if a criterion can be gamed and isn't fixed, it may be better to eliminate it entirely. The goal, after all, is to reward genuine merit, not the best cheater.
Institutional responses are multiplying. Caltech has created a “Fraud Squad” to investigate admitted students' applications. Harvard's faculty voted to cap A grades. Over 3,000 University of California professors have signed a letter demanding a return to SAT/ACT math scores. Princeton has ended its 133-year tradition of unproctored exams, acknowledging that AI has made cheating too easy to ignore. Proctored exams, it seems, are the only viable path forward.
Yale's faculty report urges colleges to prioritize academic achievement above all else—a recommendation so obvious that its necessity reveals how far higher education has strayed from its mission. Expect more colleges to follow suit: require standardized tests, lean on AP scores, and cut essays that can be easily gamed. Proof is replacing polish. The coming years will show which institutions genuinely value authenticity—and which are merely paying it lip service.
