Test-Optional at A&M. Here's What the Data Shows.
Texas A&M is test-optional. But 79% of enrolled freshmen submitted SAT scores. Here's what that means for your child's application strategy.
Test-Optional at A&M.
Here's What the Data Shows.
Most families assume test-optional means scores don't matter. The numbers tell a different story, and understanding them is the first step toward a smarter application strategy.
Texas A&M University is test-optional. No SAT or ACT score is required for freshman applicants. That's official policy, confirmed on the admissions.tamu.edu website. But if your family is using that fact as the foundation of your A&M strategy, you may be missing something important.
At Green College Admissions , I work with families across the DFW area and nationwide who are navigating the college application process. One of the most common misconceptions I see is the belief that test-optional means scores are irrelevant. At A&M, the data suggests otherwise.
What the Enrollment Data Actually Shows
According to the Texas A&M Common Data Set 2024-2025 and IPEDS, 79% of enrolled freshmen submitted SAT scores . Another 21% submitted ACT scores. That means the vast majority of students who enrolled at A&M chose to send a score, even though they weren't required to.
CDS 2024-2025 / IPEDS
This doesn't mean your child is penalized for not submitting. A&M's policy is clear: no score is required, and the university states test scores are "considered" when submitted, not required. But the pool your child is competing against looked very different from what many families expect.
Score Ranges of Enrolled Students
Among the students who did submit scores, here is where they landed. These are middle 50% ranges, meaning 25% of students scored below the lower number and 25% scored above the higher number.
| Test | 25th Percentile | 75th Percentile | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAT Composite | 1161 | 1383 | ABPA Fall 2024 |
| ACT Composite | 25 | 32 | ABPA Fall 2024 |
Source: Texas A&M Academic and Business Performance Analytics (ABPA), Fall 2024 enrolled first-time full-time students.
These are benchmarks worth knowing. If your child's score falls comfortably within or above this range, submitting it is likely a net positive. If it falls below, that's not disqualifying, but it does shift the weight onto the rest of the application.
"Test-optional doesn't mean scores are unimportant. It means the rest of your application has to carry more weight when you don't submit one."
What A&M Actually Weighs
The CDS Section C7 tells you what Texas A&M considers "very important" in its admissions decisions. Three factors sit at the top: rigor of coursework, class rank, and academic GPA. Test scores are listed as "considered," which places them below these three criteria in the official framework.
| Factor | A&M Weight |
|---|---|
| Rigor of coursework | Very Important |
| Class rank | Very Important |
| Academic GPA | Very Important |
| Standardized test scores | Considered |
Source: Texas A&M Common Data Set 2024-2025, Section C7.
This is where the strategy conversation gets important. For students in the top 10% of their Texas high school class, A&M offers automatic admission. But for everyone else, the application is evaluated holistically, and that evaluation extends well beyond the score question.
The Score Decision Is Just the Beginning
Whether your child submits a score or not, the rest of the application still needs to be built carefully. Essays, activities, demonstrated interest, and the overall story your child tells, these are the elements that differentiate applications in a pool of over 89,000 applicants with a 51% admit rate that continues to tighten.
89,422 applicants. 45,866 admitted. 20,725 enrolled. Admit rate: 51.3%. A school this size, with this many applicants, is not a safety for most students. Source: ABPA Fall 2025.
Most families I work with are surprised when they see these numbers. A&M has grown significantly in competitiveness. The families who navigate it well are the ones who understand both the data and the full application picture, and who build a strategy around both.
If your family is beginning to think through an A&M application and you want to understand what a strong application actually looks like beyond the score decision, that's the conversation I specialize in. You can learn more or reach out through the link below.
Green College Admissions · Keller, TX
Should Your Child Submit a Standardized Test Score to Michigan?
Michigan went test-optional in 2024. Here's what the published score ranges actually mean, what they leave out, and how to make the right submission decision for your child.
Should Your Child Submit a Standardized Test Score to Michigan?
Michigan went test-optional in 2024. Only half of applicants submitted scores. Here is what the data actually means and how to make a decision that helps, not hurts.
At Green College Admissions, we work with families navigating exactly these decisions. After operating under a test-flexible policy since 2020, the University of Michigan formally adopted a permanent test-optional policy in February 2024, effective for students entering Winter 2025 and beyond. For the first full cycle under that policy, just over half of applicants chose to submit a standardized test score. That number, 51%, tells you something important, but probably not what you think it does.
This post is not a list of score cutoffs. Michigan does not publish cutoffs, and anyone who gives you a single number and calls it a threshold is overstating what the data can actually tell you. What this post does instead is explain what the published score ranges mean, what they leave out, and how to think about the submission decision in a way that actually helps your child's application.
Sources: U-M Office of Budget and Planning First-Year Class Profile, Fall 2024 and 2025; 2024-25 Common Data Set.
What the Published Numbers Show
Michigan's Office of Budget and Planning publishes a detailed first-year class profile each fall. For the Fall 2024 enrolled class, here is what the score data shows for students who chose to submit:
| Test | Middle 50% Range | Submission Rate |
|---|---|---|
| SAT Total | 1360 to 1530 | 51% of enrolled class |
| ACT Composite | 31 to 34 | 18% of enrolled class |
| GPA | 3.9 to 4.0 | Average enrolled student |
Source: U-M First-Year Class Profile, Fall 2024 enrolled class, obp.umich.edu. Score ranges reflect enrolled students who submitted scores only.
At first glance, these numbers look like a benchmark. A 1360 SAT or a 31 ACT is the 25th percentile floor for submitted scores. That is useful context. But reading those numbers as a submission threshold misses something critical about how this data was generated.
What the Numbers Do Not Show
The published score ranges reflect enrolled students who chose to submit. Students who submitted strong scores but enrolled elsewhere are not in this data. Neither are admitted students who chose not to submit scores at all.
That distinction matters enormously. The 51% of enrolled students who submitted scores were a self-selected group. High scorers are more likely to submit their scores, because submitting a strong score is a rational application decision. The result is that the published middle 50% range skews upward relative to the full admitted class.
Layer on top of that: students who scored above 1530 and were admitted to Michigan but chose to enroll at a different school are also absent from this data. Michigan's published ranges describe a very specific population: students who applied, were admitted, chose to enroll, and chose to submit scores. That is not the same as the full picture of who Michigan admits, and it is certainly not a complete picture of who gets in.
- Enrolled submitters only. The ranges reflect students who submitted a score and chose Michigan. Students admitted with strong scores who enrolled at peer schools are not in this data.
- Self-selected pool. High scorers are more likely to submit. The full admitted class includes non-submitters whose scores are invisible in Michigan's published data.
- Context, not a cutoff. Michigan publishes no score threshold. These numbers describe who showed up, not who got in, and not what your child should do.
What Michigan Actually Says About Test Scores
Michigan's test-optional policy is genuine, not performative. The university rates standardized test scores as "Important" in its Common Data Set, one tier below GPA and course rigor, which are rated "Very Important." Students who do not submit scores will not be penalized. Michigan's admissions office has stated that applications are reviewed holistically regardless of whether a score is present.
That said, Michigan is not test-blind. Submitted scores are considered in context. A strong score from a student at a school with limited AP offerings reads differently than the same score from a student at a highly resourced school with a full slate of rigorous courses. Admissions officers are trained to evaluate numbers in context, and that context includes everything else in your child's file. If you want to go deeper on how holistic review works at Texas's flagship schools, our post on holistic admissions strategy at UT Austin and Texas A&M covers the same framework in detail.
How to Actually Think About This Decision
Rather than anchoring to a specific number, there are three questions worth working through before your child decides whether to submit:
Does the score help tell the story?
A strong score confirms something the rest of the application already suggests: that your child can handle rigorous academic work at a competitive university. If the score is consistent with the academic record, it reinforces the narrative. If it is significantly below the rest of the profile, it may raise questions the application does not answer.
Is the score within range of enrolled submitters?
At or above 1360 SAT or 31 ACT, your child's score is within the range of students who submitted and enrolled. Below that, the score is below the 25th percentile of a self-selected pool of already-strong submitters. That does not mean it hurts automatically, but it shifts the calculus. A score well below the range adds less than the absence of a score in most cases.
What does the rest of the application look like?
Test-optional works best when the application has something else to carry it. For a deeper look at what that means in practice, see our post on building a competitive test-optional application. Exceptional essays, meaningful activities, demonstrated impact, and strong teacher recommendations are what fill the space a score might otherwise occupy. If those elements are strong, the absence of a score is less consequential. If those elements are thin, submitting a competitive score provides a useful data point for the reader.
The Bottom Line
Michigan's published score ranges are a starting point, not a verdict. They reflect a narrow slice of the applicant pool, filtered three times over, and they do not capture the full range of students Michigan admits each year. A student with a 1320 who does not submit scores is not disqualified. A student with a 1400 who submits is not guaranteed anything.
What the data does tell you is this: Michigan is a 16% school with 109,000 applicants and a genuinely holistic review process. Every piece of the application matters. The score decision is one part of a larger strategy, and it deserves more thought than a single number can provide.