A growing group of the most selective US universities — including MIT, Caltech, Harvard, Stanford and Yale — have ended test-optional admissions and now require the SAT or ACT again. For UAE students aiming at these schools, a strong test score is essential once more — and strong IB or A-level results no longer substitute for it.
What Happened?
The pandemic-era wave of "test-optional" admissions is reversing at the top of the US university system. MIT led the way, reinstating its SAT/ACT requirement from the 2022–23 admissions cycle. A broader wave followed in 2024: Caltech restored its requirement in April 2024, ending a multi-year test-blind moratorium; Harvard announced a return to required testing for the Class of 2029 (students applying for fall 2025 admission); and Stanford announced in June 2024 that it would resume requiring the SAT or ACT from the Class of 2030.
The most recent move is the sharpest. Yale — which in 2024 had adopted a "test-flexible" policy that let applicants submit AP or IB scores in place of the SAT/ACT — restored a full ACT-or-SAT requirement in May 2026, for the 2026-27 admissions cycle. AP and IB scores can still be sent, but they no longer satisfy the requirement on their own.
One important caveat for context: this is a movement concentrated at the most selective institutions. A large share of US universities remain test-optional or test-flexible, so the reversal is real but not universal — it matters most for students targeting the very top of the US system.
What This Means for UAE Families
Every year a significant number of UAE students apply to leading US universities — both from American-curriculum schools and from IB and A-level programmes across Dubai and Abu Dhabi. For any of them targeting the universities above, the practical change is simple but consequential: the SAT or ACT has moved from "optional" back to "required." A score families may have treated as a nice-to-have during the test-optional years is once again a core part of the application these schools read.
The nuance that matters most for UAE students is the curriculum one. Many students here sit the IB Diploma or A-levels, and during the test-flexible period it was reasonable to assume that strong results in those rigorous exams could stand in for an American admissions test. At these universities, that assumption no longer holds. Harvard accepts AP, IB or A-level results in place of the SAT or ACT only in exceptional cases where a student genuinely cannot access the tests — not as a routine alternative — and Yale's May 2026 change specifically ended the option to substitute AP or IB. In practice, a Dubai IB or A-level student applying to these schools now needs an SAT or ACT score in addition to their school qualifications, however strong those are.
What that means for planning: the SAT or ACT needs to be built into the timeline early, alongside a demanding IB or A-level exam schedule, because it is now a separate, required commitment rather than an optional extra. Both tests are available to UAE students — the digital SAT and the online ACT are offered at test centres in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. And because a test is required again, the question of which test to sit matters more than it did; we covered how the SAT and the newly-changed ACT now compare in our guide to the enhanced ACT and the SAT-vs-ACT decision.
What not to over-read: this is not a blanket return to required testing across all of US higher education. Most US universities remain test-optional, so a typical UAE applicant's shortlist is likely to mix test-required and test-optional schools — which makes checking each university's own current policy essential rather than assuming one rule applies everywhere. A required test also does not automatically mean a higher bar; it means the score is now part of what these admissions offices consider.
What Should You Do?
Start from each target university's official admissions page — testing policies differ between universities and change from year to year, so the university's own website is the only reliable authority. If any of the schools above are on your child's shortlist, plan the SAT or ACT into the application timeline now, well before the exam-heavy final school year, rather than leaving it as a last-minute addition.
Because the test is required again, preparing properly for it is worth the investment. Our SAT and ACT tutors in Dubai run diagnostics for both tests and prepare students in-home for whichever one fits them best — around, not on top of, an already full IB or A-level schedule.