I think some people are pretty cynical about it. I agree that it's mostly done to boost applications and get free publicity. That being said, maybe some schools are realizing they just can't compete for students with good scores and so if they don't ask for scores, they won't need to report them, and this way, they don't have to say how low the scores of their incoming class are? Okay yikes, I sound kind of cynical too but colleges in the US are businesses just like any other - they don't make a profit but that doesn't mean they have some obviously noble cause.