The short answer is that UC believes that no testing increases accessibility.
in 2021, the UC Academic Senate claimed that SBAC scores “would add only modest, incremental value beyond high school GPA…
…
The Senate also determined that converting the Smarter Balanced exams from a low-stakes test to a high-stakes exam to be used in admissions would likely lead to the development of “test-preparation ventures that in the cases of the SAT/ACT have been shown to magnify score differences among demographic groups,” according to an agenda item for Thursday’s meeting."
I’d argue that GPA’s prior to 2021 were more valuable than GPA’s of the class of 2025. Take a look at your high school profile from any year before covid and the latest one available. Look at the GPA distributions.
The report I keep linking also recommended (emphasis mine),
A subcommittee of BOARS that includes content experts in the areas of admissions and racial equity, should engage in regular monitoring of the outcomes of test-free admission to determine the impact on admissions and student success, including freshman GPA, first-year persistence, probation rates, graduation, and time to degree. Potentially contributing factors for the initial cohorts need to be taken into account, including remote learning, allowance for credit/no credit grades, limited access to counselors/college advising, and students’ use of institutional supports.
This seems to me to say that they recommended paying attention to how test-free admission is actually working, to see if it is having a negative impact, for example, and in general, continuing to study the issue rather than considering it a closed case.
yes, I understand, but its bureacratric gobbledygook, as K12 will continue to remain disparate, and no standardized test could ever fix that. (No different than when UC said that they were going TO for a few years to find another test. Anyone with one iota of testing experience knew that they could never find one that passed muster.)
Accessibility is key to UC, and every test hinders accessibility (by definition). Just common sense.
I assume you are talking academically don’t belong? You might specify that, there are some (not me, although I guess nothing would surprise me) who believe it’s students of certain races and/or religions who ‘don’t belong.’
They could have the reasons they actually say they have, but you have in fact made it clear you will not believe them when they articulate such reasons.
I noted above - that having a high test or not as high a test doesn’t make one smart or not. It is that they are higher level students statistically vs. others are are attending on a TO basis.
When I’m talking about belonging - I’m talking statistically. Nothing else.
I also did note that having a test level required has the chance to reduce diversity (racial, wealth, what have you)…probably not a chance but it probably will.
My premise is simply - these schools are admitting kids they are finding out later don’t belong on their campus (not any campus but theirs specifically) - but I’m only saying this on a statistical basis. As Harvard said - they see the test as predictive of success in college and beyond.
Schools taking kids TO (even before COVID) obviously think differently - and I have no doubt that many of the kids that go to those might have applied to other schools but didn’t because their test didn’t measure up.
I hope any student that wants to go to any school - applies. Maybe your test doesn’t measure up - but let them tell you no. If you have a slot left and are willing to do the work, don’t de-select.
But to answer you and I noted above a few times - I’m just talking about a statistical level when I say don’t belong and not about anything else.
Perhaps related to this, where they recently became more open to looking for academic potential among those who did not have much academic opportunity (not being able to reach calculus in high school likely correlates to not having the opportunity to show other indications of academic strength that Caltech traditionally looked for). Unlike for high opportunity applicants, they may have fewer other indicators available.
I think one reason is political (both partisan and institutional) pressure, regardless of outcomes or findings. It is in fact totally believable to me that some schools could admit and educate students w/o the tests at all, as Bowdoin has done for many years. That is why to me it matters a lot if schools are doing this based on research and experimentation at their own institutions or just going with the wind.
As you say, there’s other reasons but - Harvard said - they see the test as predictive of success in college and beyond.
But we’ve killed this - but it’s sort of hard to take that statement in any other way vs. what it says (in my simple mind). It would also be hard for Harvard or any school who makes a statement like that to twist it any other way.
MIT has an extensive general education requirement with minimum rigor (particularly in math) substantially higher than that of most other colleges, although that rigor level is likely doable by students at the “typical excellent” level. The math sections of the SAT and ACT could be useful to screen out applicants who would not be able to handle that rigor at MIT.
So, for math, the MIT rigor is greater than Bowdoin, so MIT needs the SAT math metric (low bar) to ensure students are prepared?
Is the MIT math rigor that much more than Bowdoin (math is their #4 most enrolled major)? Conventional wisdom on CC is that you should be able to get equal math educations at both.
It is not the rigor of the math major that matters for this purpose (and what you claim is conventional wisdom may not be conventional wisdom, and is probably not correct). It is the rigor of the general education requirements that all students must take. MIT requires single variable and multivariable calculus for all undergraduates. Bowdoin’s math requirement could be satisfied by courses like this (described at Mathematics < Bowdoin ):
SAT and ACT scores are highly predictive of academic performance at Dartmouth.
But if you read the full white paper, it is clear they did not reach the same conclusions that you are asserting about the effects of test optional admission, and they presented data and analysis to explain why.
But again you have made your feelings very clear about what you think when these colleges say things you do not believe yourself.
So MIT rigor is greater than Bowdoin rigor causing them to use the SAT to better access applications. Should then all such rigorous schools use SAT scores to do the same? Cal, for instance? Is there a dividing line between rigorous and non-rigorous colleges that students shold be aware of? Or is it common knowledge?
