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

Top students from lower-performing schools are smart but poorly prepared. It takes them a while but in my experience (not UT) they are smart and in time catch up, especially if they can access the proper supports during their 1st year or even 1st semester.
My understanding is that UT is well-aware of that.
(If you’re considered a strong math student because only 9 students in your senior class are taking precalculus and you’re one of the only 2 As, when you take Calculus 1st semester in college with kids who took precalculus honors in 11th grade and CalcAB in 12th, it’s going to hurt and knock you out simultaneously - and it’s going to take a while for you to catch up. Same thing with English : if honors English means you were writing regular 1-page 5 paragraph essays and now you have Ap lang, AP research, IB candidates… in your class you’re not going to understand how they know what they know and you can’t even know what you don’t know.)

UT had a long article about a top FGLI student from a rural school once - 1st semester, she was failing math and had no idea why because she’d been doing well in HS math. It was a required class for her major so she was desperare. When she called her mother, the mother said that perhaps she should go home -this stuck with me because it seemed so obvious the answer was “go to office hours and book a tutor”. UT had a support program and the young woman was roped in. There was a follow up 3 years later… the student had become a math major, in line for honors at graduation.

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Some are. Some can be brought up to speed with dedicated remedial classes. Some can’t correct poor K12 schooling by the time they get to college.

Some high schools have truancy rates in excess of 50%. Just showing up regularly will result in a good rank.

Not to say that all top 6% in suburban schools are necessarily that smart either. Some are. Some have lots of parental support and scaffolding. The admission policy is designed for representation and equity. It works well for that.

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UT Austin has their own placement tests, rather than just relying on SAT. This policy existed long before COVID test optional. For example, UT Austin requires a math placement score of >= 70 to take calculus and requires a math placement score of >= 55 to take pre-calculus. A summary of requirements and minimum scores to take freshmen math courses is at Math Prerequisites | MPA Advising .

Reading the UT Austin website leaves a different impression of the math placement and math sequences leaves from the Ivy+ type colleges I am more familiar with. Ivy+ college websites generally leave an impression of trying to have a many successful students as possible in math-heavy majors. With UT Austin, it feels more like the placement test score is a hurdle you must overcome, if you want to pursue your desired major. There is less hand holding.

For example, UT Austin allows students to register and begin calculus without having placement test results. However, students are required to drop out of their math course, if they don’t score a 70 on the placement test. UT Austin encourages students to prep for the placement test, including providing prep material. They also permit taking the placement test multiple times, so a student who scores <70 would not have to drop out of their calculus class, if they do a lot of test prep and score a 70 the 2nd time they take the placement test.

UT Austin has a larger number of students with a wider degree of math backgrounds than Ivy+ colleges, yet they have fewer math course rigor options and starting points than many Ivy+ colleges. For example, note the larger number of initial math course options listed on Harvard’s math sequence page at https://www.math.harvard.edu/media/Math-for-first-year-students-2020-2021.pdf .

UT is an enormous public university with 40k students. It doesn’t have that much in common with Ivy plus schools.

That’s a great story. Since the SAT doesn’t cover Calculus, this student should still perform well on the math section and therefore not be impacted by re-introduction of required SAT test taking.

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Link: In Sudden Reversal, Harvard To Require Standardized Testing for Next Admissions Cycle | News | The Harvard Crimson

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I suspect that most of the highly selective schools that only went test-optional because of the pandemic, will now go back to requiring a standardized test score. While I agree with this, it seems a bit unfair to announce this only now. Gonna be a lot of kids prepping like crazy this summer for a late summer testing date, I suspect.

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And the dominoes continue to fall. I note this quote from Raj Chetty, "Critics correctly note that standardized tests are not an unbiased measure of students’ qualifications, as students from higher-income families often have greater access to test prep and other resources,” Chetty said in a statement Thursday. “But the data reveal that other measures — recommendation letters, extracurriculars, essays — are even more prone to such biases. Considering standardized test scores is likely to make the admissions process at Harvard more meritocratic while increasing socioeconomic diversity.”

This mirrors what Jeremiah Quinlan pointed out on EC’s, LoR’s, Essays at the time Yale announced its change in policy.

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I also note that the effects are basically a matter of policy.

Of course if these schools use tests as a factor without any sort of contextual adjustments, then that maximally favors high SES applicants. But the more context they consider, the more that can level out, or indeed reverse.

And of course that is what Dartmouth and Yale have been discussing (very contextual use of tests), and I suspect Brown and Harvard and more will be thinking along the same lines. But of course each such college can do this however and to whatever extent they choose.

But again, in the end the SES effects are not going to be dictated to them. What ever happens will be the effect they have chosen to happen.

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Exactly. As I’ve been saying for years, every piece of the admissions puzzle to highly selective private schools favors the higher income folks. Only one piece is standardized, however.

(Just common sense.)

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Yeah, sometimes I think all the fuss is a coverup for a holy war against College Board. I’m ok with that, but hate the muddying of waters due to narrative coddling. It’s hard to have a “spirited but fun” while informative discussion on the topic. Perhaps I’m dreaming that such a discussion can be had with a group as large as this

No question that CB is the boogieman, but IMO it comes down to the fact that the standardized nature of the SAT/ACT means that is also the only piece of the admissions puzzle that is easy to statistically tab for demographics (race/ethnicity, sex/gender, income, residence…).

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Agreed. And every Opportunity Insights PI agrees with you.

And let it not be forgotten that GPAs are not an even playing field, either, nor is class rank (remember that quaint statistic?) or class percentile band.

And don’t get me started on the fact that a very significant percentage of kids in wealthy districts suddenly get diagnosed with ADD in 10th grade, just in time for time and a half on the SAT/ACT, while very few kids from poor districts (where there’s probably a higher actual incidence of ADD or learning disabilities) receive this accommodation.

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There are more affluent than low income students with accommodations to be sure.

BUT…students who get tested in 10th grade (or later) and receive accommodations (HSs must give them), run a high risk of CB and/or ACT rejecting their accommodation requests due to the relatively late timing. It’s definitely not a rubber stamp at either of those organizations.

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Is there any discussion of whether superscoring and the practice of allowing many tests but only reporting the best makes the standardized tests less easy to “statistically tab” as you say? It seems to me that wealthier students would be more likely to do/be able to do this effectively (I know, like everything else), but I just wondered if it had been looked at. Also wondered how/why superscoring became such a thing. It really seems to benefit the CB…

Big News Day!

USC and maybe some of the NC publics next? :wink:

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wow. just wow.

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I’m shocked at this especially when their website more than anyone else gave off the vibe that they somehow had a “secret” method that rendered test scores irrelevant in judging their applicants which set them apart from that East Coast Tech school.

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I’m not really surprised; I had the feeling that the advisory committee was going to come out with that recommendation. I’m looking forward to seeing whatever data they release.

They still need to update their web site, this looks funny today :wink:

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