Johns Hopkins University will be test-optional for applicants to the Class of 2025. Joining a sea of highly selective institutions waiving testing requirements due to all the testing cancelations stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, JHU will not require next year’s batch of applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. The policy change is not for all subsequent admissions cycles but rather it’s just for next year’s applicants.

As JHU’s admissions office writes in their announcement about their new test-optional policy, “Because testing availability and access will be severely limited this year, Johns Hopkins is adopting a 1-year test-optional policy for the Class of 2025 (students applying for entry in the fall of 2021). If a student has a test score—SAT, ACT, AP, IB, English language proficiency exams, or others—and feels it is reflective of their academic ability, we welcome any testing submission they choose to share. We also recognize that the pandemic has affected nearly every aspect of a student’s high school experience. Many schools have made changes to their grading policies and structures, or moved to remote instruction, which impacts school clubs and organizations, athletics, internships, research, and other opportunities for student involvement.”

Our loyal readers know that we don’t assign much credence to test-optional policies. Rather, we assign credence to policies that ban the submission of test scores. As examples, applicants to Yale’s Class of 2025 are not to submit SAT Subject Test scores. That’s very real. On the other hand, JHU‘s (and Yale’s) SAT / ACT optional policy is not so real to us. Rather, we consider it PR spin. And, yes, there is a whole lot of spin right now surrounding testing in the highly selective college admissions process. So do keep that in mind.