Stanford, Harvard, Dartmouth, Yale, Penn, Brown, CalTech, JHU, and UT-Austin to Require Standardized Testing for Admissions

[hebegebe]

When it comes to Caltech:

@Yonkers6thBoro

All signs are pointing to Caltech going permanently test-blind, and it will be great fun seeing how people dismiss that or contort it to fit their priors.

When it comes to Yale and Dartmouth:

@Yonkers6thBoro

They are indeed free to adopt whatever testing regime they want, and we are free to point out the flaws, inconsistencies, and ahistorical assumptions in their stated reasons for doing so.

Are you being consistent here?

@bluebayou

IMO, the University of California data is as good as it gets. Millions of student data points over decades. If that data shows a value in testing, there is a value in testing.

Mostly agree. Even though I am generally in favor of testing, I believe that different colleges can validly come to different conclusions based upon the applicant body. The set of students applying to the University of California can have a different set of characteristics than the set of students applying to say Bowdoin. I would have expected the the applicants to Michigan and the University of California would have been similar, so the opposite conclusions there are unexpected.

@MWolf

Moreover, when these colleges are using SAT scores, they are differentiating between scores of 1520 and 1570, even though these are generally the result of brain farts, or worse, which questions were removed from consideration.

Many colleges that are using tests have said they use them as a first pass, and pretty much not after that.

@MWolf

Regarding merit - for “elite” colleges, not all “merit” is created equal. The same SAT scores are more “meritorious” the wealthier the applicants’ family is:

You have previously complained that the SATs are not good enough because they only explained 22% of the variance, corresponding to a correlation of about 0.47. But the correlation between SAT and income is much lower, so why would you bring this up now?