Standardized tests for college admissions have come under intense scrutiny, especially during the coronavirus pandemic.
But some administrators and testing experts argue that the backlash against tests like the SAT and ACT is unfair and based on little evidence, according to the New York Times.
“[A] “A growing number of experts and university administrators are wondering whether this switch was a mistake,” wrote New York Times reporter David Leonhart in a feature on the trend away from testing requirements in U.S. universities. wrote.
“Research is increasingly showing that standardized test scores contain real information and can help predict college performance, likelihood of graduation, and post-college success.” wrote Leonhardt in Sunday's feature. “Due to recent grade inflation, test scores are more reliable than high school grades.''
Administrators at some of America's top universities agree that tests like the SAT and ACT are valuable predictors of academic success. “Standardized test scores are a far better predictor of academic success than high school grades,” Brown University President Christina Paxson wrote in a letter published in June. ing.
MIT Dean of Admissions Stuart Schmil told the Times that grades don't tell the whole story about a student. “Straight A's alone don't tell us enough about whether a student will pass,” Schmil said.
Schmil also argued that MIT, one of the few elite institutions in the United States that maintained testing requirements, actually increased diversity on campus.
“After reinstating the testing requirement, we admitted the most diverse class in our history,” Schmil told the Times. “It was helpful because I had the test scores.”
“Test scores have much more predictive power than is generally understood in popular discourse,” said John Friedman, a professor of economics at Brown University.
Friedman is one of the authors of a study on the importance of testing for highly selective universities in the United States.
Liberals have led protests against standardized tests, arguing that they discriminate against black and Hispanic students, who tend to score lower than white and Asian students.
However, Leonhardt pushed back against the claim that “racial and economic disparities in SAT and ACT scores” prove “the test is biased.”
“Ultimately, there are gaps in most measures of life in America: income, life expectancy, home ownership, etc.,” he wrote in the New York Times. “No wonder. Our society suffers from great inequalities. But the problem generally isn't the statistics. The relatively high poverty rate among blacks means that the statistics are skewed. It does not show that there is. And abolishing statistics will not alleviate poverty.”
“If you don't know test scores,” said Harvard economist David Deming, “the people who suffer the most are the high-achieving students at relatively unknown high schools, which send most of their children to Ivy League schools.” I won't let it happen.” “The SAT is their lifeblood.”
Other professors advocate an entirely revolutionary system of admission to higher education. Eddie Comeau, a professor at the University of California, Riverside, told the Times.[h]“Winning the lottery'' would force education systems to “fundamentally rethink what it means to gain access and learn, rather than accept the status quo.''
Some school administrators said the conversation about standardized testing is highly political. For progressives, supporting tests like the SAT and ACT can be dangerous.
“That’s not politically correct,” Georgetown University Dean of Admissions Charles Deacon told the Intelligencer in a 2022 interview.
