Let’s move the conversation forward, please
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Today, Stanford announced for fall 2025 that SAT or ACT will be required
Yep- read upthread
Oops!
It always has been about the spin. Justifying getting “their” type of kids in.
I encourage you to go to the 2-minute mark of the video below to hear what UC Irvine - Faculty Profile System has to say about this:
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When the host starts with the false claim that practicing and prep only aids scores 3-5%, that is a massive lie.
No comment about the credentials of the guest and what he says at the 2-minute mark in the video?
Do you not value expertise?
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If you did some research about Richard Haier and who he has been linked to and theories he supports, you would think twice about any opinions he has to offer.
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He has a PhD from Johns Hopkins. He isn’t at an extreme right-wing university like Liberty. He is at UC Irvine.
I have yet to see any disturbing theories he supports. Are you implying he is a racist? A eugenicist?
As this is not the political forum and debate is not permitted, please take the back and forth to PM. Further posts will be deleted without comment.
He did qualify that with an observation that the more recent iterations of the SAT were coachable.
College admissions of the schools that are the focus of CC are about institutional priorities and missions. Even when we talk about schools needing to be more meritocratic, the definition of meritocracy is itself subjective both as to factors considered and their relative weight.
For me more data is rarely a bad thing. A school can then decide how to weight it and in what context that fits their priorities. While there is huge skepticism from some contributors about finding “diamonds in the rough”, at a dinner for Yale admittees in my region, I had a kid who I interviewed from a rural town of less than 1,000 total population, whose parents remarked that his test scores likely caught the eye of admissions officers. So something happened in his case.
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Stats are typically the most visible portion of application to both students and parents, so both students and parents often overestimate how much influence stats have on admission decisions. If a student got in, it’s common to assume the admission decision was largely because of stats. If a student with higher stats was rejected, then it’s common to make comments like decisions are “random” or the college is a “reach for everyone.” If a parent says “his test scores likely caught the eye of admissions officers,” I wouldn’t assume that means test scores are the primary reason for admission. I’m sure there were many other great things in his/her application besides just scores, and there is no way to know whether he/she would have also been admitted due to those other impressive things on application, if he/she applied test optional.
This overestimation of importance of stats is relevant to the impact of switching to test required. It’s not simply, "more data is rarely a bad thing. A school can then decide how to weight it and in what context that fits their priorities. " Many students who feel their scores are not high compared to typical admits will not apply with test required, but will apply with test optional. This relates to why there were huge increases in number of applications at highly selective colleges with high score barrier, upon going test optional. There are also a good number of students who don’t take the test at all. For example, in CA, only 25% of students took the SAT in 2023, and only 4% took ACT. For students who don’t apply because of score barrier, there is not more data – there is no data.
The skepticism relates to SAT score distributions similar to below from Chetty study. When wealthy kids are nearly 100x more likely to get top scores than low income kids, I’m skeptical when I see comments about requiring scores doing a big favor for low income kids. Sure, it’s good for the tiny fraction of low income kids who take the test, get relatively high scores, do not choose to submit those high scores under a test optional system due to feeling scores are not high enough, yet would choose to apply under test required in spite of feeling scores are not high enough; but I am skeptical about the overall impact being net positive for low income kids.
Portion of Kids Scoring 1400+ on SAT by Parents Income
99.9 Percentile Income – 19%
99th Percentile Income – 14%
98th Percentile Income – 11%
97th Percentile Income – 10%
96th Percentile Income – 8%
95th Percentile Income – 7%
. . .
Median Income – 0.4 to 0.7%
. . .
Low Income – 0.1 to 0.2%
Regarding the video, I only looked shortly after the 2 minute point and saw a variety of incorrect comments. For example, the CA senate report did not recommend keeping the SAT. It instead recommended that UC “cease consideration of standardized test scores” as an admission criteria and replace them with a new “assessment system.” The authors of the report disagreed about whether UC should go test blind before the assessment system is available or wait.
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Not sure if I missed it, Rice is going to “test recommended” starting with this admission cycle. Received an email this morning.
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I thought he said the UC group (comprised of experts in their field from the UC system), not the CA Senate, recommended keeping the SAT.
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I may have misunderstood, but I thought he was referring to the referenced UC study, which was conducted by the “UC Academic Senate, at President Napolitano’s request.” The UC Academic Senate is indeed comprised of experts in their field from the UC system.
I feel like quite frequently this conversation has illustrated the intuitive difficulties of dealing with small numbers.
Like this is a repeat, but Dartmouth’s argument was basically that for less-advantaged students who could get scores in the 1450-1490 range, submitting a test score could increase their admission probability by 3.7X!
Which I am sure is in fact meaningful to Dartmouth. On the other hand, it was going to change their admission frequency from 2% to 7.4%. Which is in fact 3.7X, but still Dartmouth is implying it still intends to reject 92.6% of less advantaged applicants who submit a 1450-1490. And then of course only so many such applicants will have a 1450-1490 to submit anyway.
Indeed, if you looked at the relevant figure in their white paper (Figure 7), 1450-1490 was precisely when the percentage of less-advantaged applicants with that test score was really crashing, whereas there were a lot more advantaged applicants in that range. Except Dartmouth does not really argue this policy is going to help more-advantaged applicants, and indeed the data that gave them the 3.7X for less-advantaged applicants in that range suggested there would be no difference for more-advantaged applicants in that range.
So, that ALSO supports the narrative this won’t really be radically changing Dartmouth’s student body. At most just a little.
But then a few less-advantaged individuals are in fact going to fall into that range. Not a lot, but a few. And to them it may mean a lot, and again I do not doubt Dartmouth wants them. And I do not doubt all these other colleges want them too, and indeed do not want Dartmouth to outcompete them for those students.
But still–this is a pretty small group in the greater scheme.
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Kid was pretty impressive overall, and I gave him the second highest rating possible (I’ve given the highest rating only once in over 30 years to a kid that was cross admitted to HYS plus others), so of course he was not admitted based on scores alone. The resources at his public HS were understandly limited given the small population base, but he made the most of what was available (which did not include the fancy EC’s and AP/IB courses). Interviews are selective now for Yale, so something caught their eye, and it was probably a combination of items, but a high test score would logically be a plus in the context of an unknown school with lower headline rigor.
No one knows for sure, but maybe the increase in apps when schools went TO subsequent to the truly Covid impacted years were primarily from kids whose scores were lower than historical admits. The schools that saw the huge increase in apps may well have decided that putting the test filter back on was going to yield an overall stronger pool and that they would still have an abundance of qualified candidates to achieve their diversity and other institutional goals.
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Were there 2 studies?!?
In February 2020, the faculty responded with a recommendation that the university continue using the tests for admissions.
I expect the Forbes article author is referencing the study I was referring to. The study was released on Jan 27th, 2020; and the report was mentioned in a news story in the same Feb 2020 timeline mentioned in the Forbes article. Another Forbes article references that Feb 2020 news story, and calls the academic senate report as “faculty committee.” This faculty/academic senate study is often misquoted as having recommended keeping SAT/ACT.