So, half the professors at CalTech asked for something while knowing it is completely without value…or…they asked for standardized tests to be brought back because they disagree with the study.
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“We have more qualified students applying than there are spots at Caltech,” noted Centennial Chair Professor and petition signatory John Dabiri in an interview with the Tech. Standardized testing “helps quantify the level of rigor the students are capable of.”
Last part seems rather important, no? Why’d you leave the last part of the quote out?
Faculty conducted the study and faculty disagreed with the study. OK, that happens. But perhaps speaks to an issue that isn’t so black and white?
Before Covid, was half of the faculty writing letters to get rid of standardized tests? Maybe they were, I don’t know.
But, at least in this article, I don’t see him arguing that any accepted student hasn’t been adequately prepared for the rigor. Again, it sounds to me like they are looking for ways to choose between very similar and fully qualified students. All selective colleges do that. Some do it through standardized tests - and that is their prerogative - and some do it through more holistic means and do not feel they always (or in the case test blind schools ever) need standardized tests as part of that. Each college may select students they way they feel is most appropriate for their school. It doesn’t mean unqualified students are sneaking in where they don’t belong. It just means spots are limited, lots of students are qualified for those spots, and they need a strategy for choosing between them. That seems like a fairly obvious dilemma for all selective schools and, again, each school will have its strategy for doing so.
Nor do I, but it says their own faculty conducted the study. I have not read the study. I do not know if it came with recommendations for admissions.
Didn’t we just talk about this a couple weeks ago? The February 6 Tech article linked below said that the Advisory Committee planned to have something to say about the subject by the end of March, which is right around now, but I don’t know if they have released anything yet. Do you have news that I haven’t seen?
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Leaving the specific example of CalTechs admissions decisions aside for the moment, doesn’t that quote speak to the wider world of admissions, which is what this thread is about? Some would have us believe standardized tests offer no meaning whatsoever.
Is it common for a university to have half of the faculty writing a petition to change procedure because everything is operating the absolute best it possibly could?
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I think this line is key, "“We have more qualified students applying than there are spots at Caltech”
I don’t think the CalTech profs think test-optional students can’t do long division. They want the proven best. They want CalTech to be a meritocracy. They want a CalTech degree to be globally elite and they don’t want it devalued by letting in kids who, while fine in most respects, aren’t the CalTech standard.
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Is it not currently? Has its reputation been tarnished in recent years?
I personally find rather little meaning, but I also support colleges making the decision they feel is right for them. As I said, every admissions office will develop strategies for selecting students to admit. For some, that will mean requiring tests, for others that will be allowing but not requiring tests, and a small-ish minority will not look at all at test scores. All of those options are on the table and each college will choose which strategy they prefer, as is their prerogative. There remain questions surrounding equity and cost-benefit of test scores for some student (all of the things already discussed here and warrant no further comment from here). But colleges still have the right to run their admissions office as they choose.
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Wouldn’t any serious institution of higher learning want this?
Test optionality is an experiment conducted in real time and the consequences will be evident in a few years. But by then it will be too late. We have seen numerous such experiments fail in different realms of the society. Some recent examples are equity based selection of college presidents and social justice based decriminalization and recriminalization in Oregon.
The article states that the petition “requested a shift from being test-blind to test-optional.” not that they requested test required.
A high SAT score hardly means that a student is “the proven best” or even that a student is remotely qualified for Caltech. Among Caltech students, I’d expect the math SAT is largely a measure of being able to rapidly answer simple algebra/trig multiple choice questions while making few/no careless errors. It’s not a good measure of being prepared for the Caltech core math classes, which I doubt are multiple choice , I doubt emphasize algebra/trig, and I doubt focus on answering simple questions quickly without careless errors. Instead Caltech looks for other criteria that does show evidence of being well prepared for the Caltech curriculum.
Those skills are necessary but not sufficient for Caltech students. Their absence, however, would be a huge problem. Perhaps that is the issue
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Those skills are necessary but not sufficient for Caltech students. Their absence, however, would be a huge problem. Perhaps that is the issue
Or perhaps the issue involves remote classes and/or modified grading during COVID. Or perhaps it involves admission focusing more on improving diversity. Or perhaps it involves students having different grade expectations than in the past, and students/parents/admins being more likely to blame professors for non-A grades. Or perhaps the issue involves professors generally feeling things were better in the past and attributing that to test blind vs test optional. Or perhaps some faculty think test optional will allow them to more easily find diamonds in the rough from underresourced areas and/or encourage them to apply, rather than agreeing with the annectodal example(s).
I could continue. The point is there are many possible explanations and confounding variables that changed besides just test optional vs test blind, so one cannot conclude that switching to from test blind to test optional will fix everything. A school like Caltech doesn’t change policy based on a professor/professors listing an “anecdotal” example without any statistical evidence; particularly when that anecdote conflicts with the previous study. Instead they are continuing a study and statistical review, which will be released later this year.
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I am sure we will all welcome release of that study. I am also sure that if half the Caltech faculty say the current process for admission needs to change, there is indeed a problem, and given how bright the Caltech faculty are, they likely already thought of all your other variables.
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So much of the writing about shifting from test-optional to mandatory testing rests on two points that I don’t completely understand as relevant. Multiple editorials in the NYT and other leading periodicals proclaim the SAT as a “ticket out of adversity” for exceptional scorers coming from underprivileged neighborhoods or schools. In a test optional system, weren’t these same high performers allowed to submit their scores? Wasn’t that the “optional” part? What about the other students - the valedictorians from underprivileged high schools who do not do well on standardized tests? Does that same “standardized testing” door swing to keep them out?
Second, there is an emphasis on T20 schools shifting to test required. Highly competitive and well funded T20 schools (like the Ivies) have extensive dossiers on every school, its grade history, how students from that school have fared in their college, scores, etc. In that context, SAT scores easily can be seen as just one more data point. What about for even more overwhelmed and less well funded public and private colleges who do not have the resources to comb through applications? For the 60-80% crowd of high school students (the bulk of 4-year college students), couldn’t the introduction of one more factor that we know skews exponentially with privilege block what meritocracy in a capitalist democracy is mostly about - allowing low class students fair and equal access to the means to become middle class (and not T20 upper class)?
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A number of schools, including the entire UC system, were completely test blind.
88 schools (including the UC schools) are test free. 1930 are test optional. I really think the talking points (now) are about the shift from test-optional to test mandatory.