The concept of “test optional” in college admissions is something that’s been around long before the pandemic.  Bowdoin College in Maine was the first to go test optional in 1969, and beyond that, the modern test-optional movement started in the mid-1980s, according to Bob Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest.org.  By the late 1980s, Fair Test had a report called Beyond Standardized tests listing the schools, about a couple dozen, that did not require test scores as part of the college admissions process.