Elite colleges are ditching a major admissions requirement

FEBRUARY 05: Pupils at Williamwood High School sit prelim exams on February 5, 2010 in Glasgow, Scotland As the UK gears up for one of the most hotly contested general elections in recent history it is expected that that the economy, immigration, the NHS and education are likely to form the basis of many of the debates. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

(Many colleges have dropped standardized test requirements for admissions.Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

Conversations about SAT and ACT scores are ubiquitous among high school students applying to colleges.

Increasingly, however, many colleges and universities have begun to eschew mandatory standardized test scores as requirements for their application processes.

Amherst College, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Vassar College, and Williams College have all dropped requirements that students take SAT subject-matter tests, also referred to as the SAT II, for admission, The Boston Globe reports.

The elite schools' reasoning: The exams are not reliable indicators of students' performance in college and may harm low-income students.

"We want to make the application process as fair to all students as possible," Mary Dettloff, a spokeswoman for Williams College, told The Globe. "We felt like we weren't getting any valuable data from the SAT II scores to help us."

The news comes on the heels of similar pushes to drop the regular SAT and ACT exams from college admissions.

Last year, George Washington University — with 11,000 undergraduates and 25,500 total students — became the largest private university in the US News and World Report's list of best colleges to forgo rigid testing requirements in favor of a more holistic application review process.

And more than 800 other schools do not use SAT or ACT scores for admitting substantial numbers of students into bachelor's degree programs, according to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, which tracks the schools with open testing policies.

Many of the schools on that list, however, are less selective private schools. The move to drop SAT II exams from admissions requirements signals that more elite schools are starting to rethink the merits of standardized testing.

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