didn't MIT, like most other schools change this only in wake of COVID? A pandemic resulting in a significant amount of your potential applicants from applying is pretty good reason.
That was a coincidence. MIT announced it was dropping the SAT on March 20, 2020, just a day after the first statewide lockdown order. The announcement says that they had already planned to make the change before COVID: https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/a-special-announcement... (“And last, but certainly not least: I know we are making this announcement during the COVID-19 pandemic. We had already been planning to make this change…”)
The UC system dropped the SAT in May 2021, in a settlement of a lawsuit that argued standardized tests were discriminatory.
