Universities that have eliminated standardized test requirements for admissions in recent years generally experienced gains in diversity in their student bodies, according to research by the University of California, Davis. However, if the universities also faced recent financial shortfalls or enrollment declines, or continued to prioritize quantitative academic criteria such as test scores and class rank, these gains in diversity diminished or disappeared.

The paper, “Same Policy, No Standardized Outcome: How Admissions Values and Institutional Priorities Shape the Effect of Test-Optional Policies on Campus Diversity,” was published in the American Sociological Review on Aug. 11.

“Although test-optional admissions policies are often adopted with the assumption that they will broaden access to underrepresented minority groups, the effectiveness of these policies in increasing student diversity appears to depend on existing admissions values and institutional priorities at the university,” said Greta Hsu, co-author of the paper. Hsu is a UC Davis professor in the Graduate School of Management who studies organizational behavior.