It largely confirms what some of us having been saying for years, which is that that standardized tests, when viewed in context, are an excellent predictor of college performance, certainly much better than grades alone.
Here are a couple of relevant quotes from the article:
Researchers who have studied the issue say that test scores can be particularly helpful in identifying lower-income students and underrepresented minorities who will thrive.
Today, perhaps the strongest argument in favor of the tests is that other parts of the admissions process have even larger racial and economic biases. Affluent students can participate in expensive activities, like music lessons and travel sports teams, that strengthen their applications.
Examples of elite colleges that now require standardized testing are MIT and Georgia Tech. In addition, admission officers at Yale and Brown are now publicly stating the value of these tests, even though they donât yet require it.
What this doesnât dig into very much is the reasoning behind why testing is not âpolitically correctâ:
âseveral told me, not for quotation, that they feared the political reaction on their campuses and in the media if they reinstated tests. âItâs not politically correct,â Charles Deacon, the longtime admissions dean at Georgetown University, which does require test scores, has told the journalist Jeffrey Selingo.â
There are many parallels with other âluxury beliefsâ amongst progressive elites, where they say one thing (eg about marriage not being necessary to raise a family) while doing the opposite themselves.
And getting rid of SAT testing is again a benefit to elite parents with not so smart kids, itâs much harder to boost your SAT score to the top 1% than to undertake community service and internships (where well connected parents have a lot more routes to get these opportunities for their kids).
My dad said they found standardized test scores to be excellent predictors for how engineering students would do at UT Austin, undergrad and grad. He was there for over 50 years so he had a lot of experience.
One of the reasons is because the tests further disadvantage already disadvantaged students (low income and/or URM).
Maybe, time will tell. Even if Harvard were to go back to required testing, I think the cascade effect will be limited. About 1,000 four year schools (of around 3,000) were TO prior to the pandemic, so they arenât going back to tests. Plenty of other schools that went TO during the pandemic arenât going back eitherâŠunless their own internal data show that tests are important in some way that is important to the school (like MIT).
I could see additional states, like NC, politicizing test scores and re-requiring them for their public collegesâŠBUT that doesnât mean the schools would have to place any weight in the admissions process on a required test score. Heck, a given schoolâs enrollment mgmt leader could even suppress the test score for app readers.
I think the key here is in @hebegebe 's initial post, which is that they need to be âviewed in context.â If they are, then not only do they not or should they not disadvantage those kids, they would become a pathway to advantaging them.
In fact the Yale and Dartmouth deans of admissions discussed this very thing, talking about a hypothetical applicant from a lower SES, under-resourced high school scoring â200 points above the school averageâ being super meaningful even if the nominal score were below the collegeâs typical range of scores.
But the fact is plenty of the kids at the average score of the HS in your example could/would also be successful in college. Less privileged students are disadvantaged for reasons including their ADHD (for example) is undiagnosed and/or untreated so they donât get extra time on tests, they attend lower quality schools, and they arenât taught how to take tests like the SAT/ACT.
The 1,000 or schools that were TO prior to the pandemic know this, and decided their AOs could not in fact adjust for the various contexts (many of which are unknown to the AO) when reading apps.
ETA: I am not an advocate for either side of testing/test optional. I know having worked with tons of low income kids as a counselor, and now in admissions, that itâs a complex issue. I sure would like MIT to release the data they relied upon to make their decision to require tests (even though it likely wouldnât be relevant to most schools). And remember plenty of schools have released data that show testing to be unimportant in outcomes at their school, eg. Bates, DePaul, Ithaca. I sure would like Bowdoin to publish their data on that because they know thatâs the case there as well in the 50+ years they have been TO.
This,^^^
âBut the fact is plenty of the kids at the average score of the HS in your example could/would also be successful in college. Less privileged students are disadvantaged for reasons including their ADHD (for example) is undiagnosed and/or untreated so they donât get extra time on tests, they attend lower quality schools, and they arenât taught how to take tests like the SAT/ACT.â
I have issues with timed tests. Give everyone extra time. The ones that need it stay and the ones that donât go. Many, many very capable students just need a bit more time.
I would like to see the outcomes of the last few years with students not needing Standardized testings. How did they do in college as a whole?
Iâm more persuaded by the idea that they have essentially been forced to go TO over time owed to enrollment challenges, despite whatever they may say to the contrary. Obviously there may be exceptions to this. But this is my view.
I agree but I think the difficulty is that far too many parents and others donât have any interest in / awareness of schools trying to make these decisions in context. Itâs easy enough to see parents on various school threads wondering why students with âlower statsâ are getting admitted or receiving merit money when their own have not. Honestly, some schools/systems have probably decided the additional info received from test scores is not worth the drawback of collecting this info and then having to explain, under public and political scrutiny, why students with lower test scores are ever admitted before students with higher scores.
Only anecdotes and observation, so no. But it seems to me that higher ed, like just about everything else in our world/economy, continues to bifurcate into the haves and have nots. And, the group of haves shrinks over time as the wealth (and âwealthâ) is consolidated. Thatâs the group that I believe will go back to at least test preferred if not test required. Thereâs been enough telegraphing of late about this from some âhavesâ to point in this direction.
The have nots will increasingly need to do what they can to draw applicants and enrollees. TO, no supplements, marketing, etc. among other strategies.
I donât think the west coast will go back to testing. The culture here just seems to have completely changed in the last few years. Our kidsâ Catholic school used to automatically register all juniors for the March SAT and itâs completely up to the students now to decide if they want to test, with no emphasis either way. The majority of D23âs friends applied test optional and went to great schools, I just donât see it changing out here, with maybe the exception of some engineering programs.
My personal opinion is that standardized testing is valuable.
Agreed and I would add this to a very long list of things which far too many parents and others donât have any interest in or awareness of!
As for the tradeoff you describe, Iâm not sure that today (as opposed to maybe 5 and certainly 10-15 years ago) thereâs any less public or political scrutiny for schools wrt admissions policies. UC is test blind as an obvious example and their collective admissions results can be as confounding as those of any highly rejective schoolâs.
I think it will depend on whether the telegraphing to date by certain selective schools becomes more of a thing, including formally adopting test âpreferredâ policies. Hard to ignore when it gets to that level. But weâll see of course.
The âfactâ that there are data supporting both sides of the issue leaves plenty of room for tea leaf reading, which is what Iâm doing - not âguessing.â
So if a college does admit a student whose scores show âpotentialâ but who are at a lower level of preparedness, what do you do with them? Admit them and hope that theyâre capable of catching up on their own with a sort of sink or swim mentality? How well do these students end up doing and whatâs their graduation rate?
As for a return to mandatory SAT/ACT I wouldnât bet on it. Thereâs an enrollment cliff looming on the horizon and anecdotal reports on the r/professors reddit indicates that they are seeing admitted students performing at a much lower level of preparedness than in the past but that many are getting pushed by admin to pass students so as to keep the tuition dollars rolling in. Returning to the SAT/ACT would likely result in it being apparent how much selectivity has fallen at certain schools.
Wealthy neighborhoods and private schools have already instructed their students that thereâs no such thing as âtest optionalâ and that theyâre making a huge mistake not sending in scores. If data is being collected, itâs being considered regardless of what the admissions officers tell the public.
I work with black high schoolers, and it pains me to see them fall for the obvious mistake of not sending in their scores while predominately white/asian/and high-income students send theirs in.
Thatâs only true at certain schools and that tends to be relatively selective ones. Test optional is really test optional for all students at most schools that offer itâŠthink Oregon, muhlenberg, etc.
ETA:
The high academic students should be funneled to any of the national application programs (Questbridge, Posse, ScholarMatch, College Possible, College Greenlight, etc) and/or any local college access org so they can maximize their opportunities.
These are the reported graduation rates for Ivy Plus schools.
Harvard 97%
Yale 97%
Princeton 98%
Columbia 95%
Penn 96%
Brown 96%
Cornell 95%
Dartmouth 95%
Duke 95%
Johns Hopkins 93%
MIT 95%
Cal Tech 94%
Vanderbilt 93%
U Chicago 95%
WUSTL 94%
Rice 93%
Northwestern 94%
Stanford 96%
The non-graduation rates are equivalent or even lower than their impossibly low acceptance rates.
The contrarian view is that the Ivy
Plus schools donât need to look at applicant standardized test scores because essentially anyone they admit will successfully graduate. Keeping a test optional environment best suits their institutional priorities.