The entire standardized test process is certainly fraught with inequality. Students at under-resourced schools are already at a disadvantage with foundational math and verbal skills, fewer test dates/locations, and less privileged students may not have the resources to afford private test prep resources.
College admissions and the US educational system overall certainly suffer from systemic inequality that disadvantages low income/marginalized students. While restoring testing policies is not going to be a magical solution, I think it is one of the best ways for disadvantaged students to show their academic promise, especially when considered in context. MITâs reintroduction of required test score submission shows that universities can be successful in promoting a more diverse student cohort while requiring test score submission, when combined with thoughtful consideration of applicantsâ background/resources.
This jumped out at me as showing Mr. Leonhardtâs bias. What evidence supports the claim that those who score highest on the SAT are most likely to cure diseases, transition the world to clean energy, and found nonprofits that benefit society? Please. This kind of thinking comes from politics and emotion, not science or even logic.
They are literally saying that without looking at scores they were unable to reliably predict studentsâ success in rigorous classes. In other words, the success of students without score was less predictable.
Is it your interpretation that they couldnât predict how brilliant the TO students⊠err⊠I mean, students admitted without test scores would turn out to be, so they decided to reinstitute the test requirements just so MIT could brace itself for their sheer awesomeness?
Iâm confused. He didnât come up with a model that works for non-selective colleges or âthe entire population.â He is using the data from Ivy+ colleges; the data from the study which is the topic of the NYT piece.
Using the data from Ivy+ colleges, the SAT just isnât as important as is being portrayed. And the downsides are either being ignored or summarily dismissed.
Retrospective analysis? Arenât all such studies retrospective? Iâm not statistician, but I would think data has to exist before one studies it. And speaking of the senate report, the article completely ignored what I am told is a pretty sound critique . . .
As stated in my earlier post, MIT was not test optional. They instead requested that students who could safely take the SAT/ACT do so and submit scores. However, they did not require that students who could not take the test safely submit scores. Not forbidding students who could not take the test safely from applying is not the same thing as making the test optional.
This also is consistent with reinstating the test post COVID. MIT did not say that the extremely few students (as I recall, I previously estimated that close to ~0 students were admitted without scores) did not have adequate performance, or the performance of the students who were admitted without scores had anything to do with their decision to continue requiring tests for students who could safely take them.
My original post asked, if there have been any colleges for which , âGPA of attending students who submit SAT scores is notably higher than GPA of attending students who do not submit SAT scores?â Your link does not describe this case. This isnât just a technicality. There is no comparison of the performance between students who submitted test scores and students who did not, or any mention of how the students who were admitted without scores performed during college.
The discussion of MIT in the NYTimes article was disappointing, to say the least. The author completely garbles it. Doesnât give much confidence for the rest.
Here is how @MITChris put it when addressing whether MIT was test optional:
And in response the observation that âmany have the misconception that MIT experimented with TO and that it was a failure, but that doesnât seem to be the case at all,â @MITChrisresponded:
It was nothing about the quality of admits during the brief period when those who couldnât take the test were still considered.
That final portion of the article discusses not so much the tests specifically, but rather what the goal of âelite higher educationâ should even be to begin with: fostering academic excellence or increasing social mobility? On that very point there exists profound disagreement.
Even so, academically excellent students are indeed more likely to succeed in academic endeavors, and so if one concedes that the answer to question 1 is in fact âacademic excellenceâ then perhaps we should not discard the tools that we have to achieve them because social justice advocates find them ânot politically correctâ.
âWhen I have asked university administrators whether they were aware of the research showing the value of test scores, they have generally said they were. But several 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
Fun fact: I have a free copy of Selingoâs opus right in front of me as I write this. I poked in and out briefly over the years, but never mustered the strength to fully immerse myself into the admissions sausage-making misery of the likes of Emory and Davidson.
I am honestly not sure whether you are playing word games or implying that MIT lied to their applicants, but in any case, I am curious why, in your opinion, MIT decided to once again require test scores?
A COVID vaccine was widely available, and COVID had been largely contained, so students could safely take tests again. There was no longer a signification portion of students who could not safely take the test.
(responding to being tagged, havenât read rest of thread)
Wait, but Leonhardt did make that clear:
" But after officials there studied the previous 15 years of admissions records, they found that students who had been accepted despite lower test scores were more likely to struggle or drop out."
Our decision to reinstate the test had zero to do with the performance of any students admitted in 2020 or 2021.
A school may have done research and found the SAT/ACT doesnât predict for them
A school may not have done any research at all
A school may think that it has a different mission than optimizing academic success at their own institution as measured by certain indicators, and that mission could be considered normatively good or bad by others depending on their own goals
âThis isnât politically correctâ is, IMHO, a dodge from the deeper questions, particularly with (3) (i.e. what is college for).
Crystal clear: MIT looked at the data and concluded they do indeed need to look at the scores to better predict student success at MIT. Same thing Stu Schmill said.
