Columbia Completes Ivy League Return to Mandatory Testing for 2027-28 Cycle

Columbia University has officially ended its test-optional policy, becoming the final Ivy League school to reinstate a mandatory SAT or ACT requirement for undergraduate applicants. The university announced the policy shift on June 12, 2026, stating it will take effect in August 2027 for the 2027-2028 admission cycle, as reported by Columbia's Undergraduate Admissions office and covered by Higher Ed Dive and the Columbia Spectator. This move completes a sweeping reversal across the Ivy League, which began earlier in the 2020s.

With Columbia's decision, all eight Ivy League institutions—Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale—will now require standardized test scores for first-year applicants. Prior to this announcement, six Ivies had already reinstated requirements for the 2026-2027 cycle, as noted by Oriel Admissions. Columbia's policy specifically applies to applicants to Columbia College and The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (Columbia Engineering) seeking to enroll in Fall 2028.

The reunification of the Ivy League under a test-required mandate signals a decisive end to the widespread test-optional era prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This development creates a clear, uniform expectation for high-achieving students targeting the nation's most selective universities. As noted by Applerouth, Columbia's announcement "officially reunifies all eight Ivy League institutions." The policy shift underscores a continued trend among elite STEM-focused institutions like MIT and Caltech, which have also reinstated testing requirements, reinforcing the critical role of standardized scores in holistic review at the highest levels of selectivity.