Graduate admissions processes have undergone historic and unprecedented shifts in the COVID-19 era with the rapid expansion of test-optional admissions policies and holistic review practices. Given the early testing center closures and general uncertainties, the COVID-19 crisis led many schools to adopt test-optional graduate admissions policies, where standardized admissions tests were not required for admission but would be considered if submitted by the applicants. Some programs shifted to test-free graduate admissions policies, where the test was not required and would not be considered at all if submitted. In partnership with NAGAP, the Association for Graduate Enrollment Management, ETS conducted research to better understand how these seismic shifts in admissions policies affect the graduate admissions process and its stakeholders. The research explicates the goals of these policies, the admissions decision-making strategies implemented by institutions and graduate programs with test-optional and test-free policies, and the experiences of graduate admissions officers and academic department leaders working under these policies. This work began in the summer of 2021 with a pulse survey regarding the extent and nature of test-optional and test-free policies first reported in Haviland et al. (2022). A follow-up survey in Fall 2022 further explored these themes as the pandemic was beginning to shift toward an endemic phase.