Texas university joins growing list of colleges reinstating standardized testing

A Black University of Texas at Austin student told Fox News Digital she was disappointed to find out that there won’t be any Black-only graduations sponsored by the university anymore.

The University of Texas at Austin (UT) reinstated its standardized testing requirement, joining a growing list of higher education institutions.

"Our goals are to attract the best and brightest students and to make sure every student is successful once they are here. Standardized scores combined with high school GPA support this goal by improving early identification of students who demonstrated the greatest academic achievement, the most potential, and those who can most benefit from support through our student success programs," President Jay Hartzell said.  

The move comes four years after having test-optional admissions for undergraduate applications. UT suspended ACT/SAT score requirements in Spring 2020 due to "limited testing availability during the COVID-19 pandemic."

UT Austin is based in Austin, Texas and presides over 50,000 students. (Reuters/Julia Robinson)

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The university added that due to the plethora of high school GPAs surrounding 4.0, the standardized test requirement is a "proven differentiator" that serves the best interest of the applicant and UT. 

The applicants who opted to submit their standardized test scores tended to demonstrate a strong academic performance at the collegiate level and higher graduation rates, according to data released from UT. Those students tend to fare better than the students who opted not to submit standardized test scores.

They explained further that "students who submitted standardized scores performed significantly