What is a Test Optional College?
This list includes bachelor degree granting institution that do not require all or most recent U.S. high school graduates applying for fall 2025 to submit ACT/SAT results before admissions decisions are made. As the restrictions column indicates, some schools only exempt applicants who meet minimum grade or class rank criteria; others use ACT/SAT scores solely for course placement. Please check with individual schools for details.
1,800+
Accredited, 4-Year Colleges & Universities with ACT/SAT-Optional or Test-Free Testing Policies for Fall 2023 Applicants
1800+
ACT/SAT Optional Institutions
80+
Test-Free Institutions
Searchable List U.S. Colleges That Grant Bachelor's Degrees
To request access to our full current database (which includes IPEDs UnitIDs and additional policy information) please contact us.
ACT/SAT Optional List Methodolgy
FairTest creates its list of ACT/SAT test optional and test-free colleges by starting with the IPEDs government database of colleges and universities. We select from that database colleges that meet the following conditions:
are based in the United States and its territories,award bachelor’s degrees or higher,
are accredited,
have first-year first-time students,
have a Carnegie classification, and
are not entirely online
When these critieria were used on July 30th, 2022, this resulted in a total of 2295 colleges. From this initial list we consolidated certain for-profit universities, such as Strayer University which had 17 different sites. The government data is only updated approximately every 18 months thus some colleges close, open, or gain accreditation before IPEDs is updated. When certain universities, such as recently re-accreditated Morris Brown College, change their status but have not yet recived an IPEDs number, we may add them to our database before they are in IPEDs.
To determine test optional policies, we rely on primarily on credible news reports and college websites. From time to time we find discrepencies between what’s listed on the college’s website and what stated publicly, in those cases we reach out directly to the university to resolve any contradictions before updating that policy in our data.