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About a third of Wisconsin’s private colleges and universities do not require standardized test scores to gain admission to their institutions, many of which dropped the requirement in recent years.

University of Wisconsin System campuses will probably not follow suit. UW System Board of Regents policy requires freshman applicants to submit standardized test scores.

Regent President Drew Petersen said in an interview last week that his “sense right now” is that the System is “committed to test scores.” But he also said he would like feedback from others and a chance to look at what the research says.

A 2018 study examining more than 950,000 applicants to 28 test-optional institutions found high school grades and first-year college GPAs were lower in students who did not submit test scores, but those students graduated at equal or slightly higher rates than those who submitted scores. And all but one of the institutions saw substantial increases in minority, low-income and first-generation students applying.