The author is right, there isn't some big mystery, but his conclusion is wrong. The original reason colleges went test optional is that the SAT is a point of f

The author is right, there isn't some big mystery, but his conclusion is wrong. The original reason colleges went test optional is that the SAT is a point of friction for some applicants and therefore reduces the number of applicants a college/university might receive. This reduces the total pool of applicants thereby increasing the acceptance rate and, if a college is really hurting for applicants, potentially reduces total enrollments. Most colleges are incredibly tuition dependent. They are not in the business of rejecting anyone that they think could be successful at their institution. The SAT saw this trend and decided they needed to respond by eliminating analogies and adding a writing section. This was in 2005. This only increased the trend because now colleges couldn't even compare SAT scores from one year to the next, which was really the only real benefit colleges saw in the SAT, because as it turns out, the SAT was a pretty bad predictor of success beyond freshman year. So really colleges just stopped seeing the value in the test coupled with it serving as just another barrier for students when most colleges were trying remove barriers to increase the number of applicants. There's no big mystery--it is about revenue.