Harvard will require Test Scores starting next year

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:this is for current Juniors? my kid has no interest in Harvard, but this seems really really late to make this call for this class

Tend to agree. I think it’s a reflection of how ill prepared TO kids were.

There is zero evidence of this or else schools would be releasing the hard data

Dartmouth had the highest rate of students on academic probation ever. They admissions director attributed this directly to the TO policy and the data was consistent with this claim.

Citation. This is not true.

Dp, but I believe this comes from the podcast with the Dartmouth and Yale admissions officers.

Not exactly what would call a valid citation there.

[Anonymous]

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If you genuinely believe Bias Victim deserves a spot at Selective U., what is Victim's game plan once admitted? To major in dance? How will Selective U. be any different that Biased Public Schools with respect to offering teaching "styles" AND evaluation of material that is not "biased"?

The game plan is to receive affirmative action in perpertuity for life. This actually happens. The underqualified URM who gets into a selective college, gets another bump in medical school affirmative action for bombing the MCAT and having a low science GPA, and then another bump for residency and another bump during hiring. It never ends.

Dude. You people really live in fantasy land. And are so hateful I can't understand. And uninformed. I won't say unintelligent because even smart people can be raging bigots.

Not the PP, but my company leadership explicitly told us to lower the bar for black candidates when hiring. Explicitly.

They did not. What bar?

Are the people denying the open secret in academics and the professional world really that clueless? Do you work outside your home? Of COURSE, standards are routinely lowered, and it starts with our friend upthread whose daughter scored 1290 and got into Georgetown. There are only a few thousand black students graduating each year who have even met the baseline of "college prepared." Those who meet those benchmarks are admitted by the elite institutions, but as you go down the rankings, those schools still need to show a diverse class, and kids who truly do not belong in college are admitted.

Because of lack of preparation and "mismatch" between preparation and IQ with the rest of the student body, the graduation rates for blacks are much lower, making the pool of students available to create diverse classes in grad schools and corporate hiring classes even lower, and these institutions reach further down the rankings to fill classes. There are innumerable internship programs for minority students at all of our elite corporations trying to compete for these kids as early as possible.

Um, can you please show us the statistics for students of color not graduating from these top universities. Please. I am the "friend" from above. Shall I reiterate, that 3 semesters in, she had a 3.9 GPA, and is on track to have another 3.9 this semester. Plenty of her classmates who are also students of color--and some of them athletes as well--are thriving. You are making these things up to support your racist garbage.

I did not pinpoint graduation rates at top universities. They are admitting the black students of highest caliber, and have the resources to provide all kinds of supports, including special summer sessions to remediate skills. Here are plenty of statistics on the racial graduation rates.

https://uncf.org/the-latest/african-americans-and-college-education-by-the-numbers
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/raceindicators/indicator_red.asp
https://hechingerreport.org/%E2%80%8B%E2%80%8Bwhy-white-students-are-250-more-likely-to-graduate-than-black-students-at-public-universities/

Lots of reviews of "mismatch" studies, both pro and con:
https://manhattan.institute/article/does-affirmative-action-lead-to-mismatch

Of course you didn't "pinpoint" grad rates of top universities, because you can't find any evidence. The graduation rate of students of color is mixed in consistently, and especially in the stupid links your provided, with first gen, and the top reason for not graduating is cost. You left that little piece out of your weak attempt to defend your disgusting racism. You seem to accept that students of color who are accepted to at least the top colleges graduate because they were "top caliber" in the first place, but then still need to say they require extra supports--simply because they're Black. I know you never will, but you seriously need to check yourself. Be honest, did you even go to college yourself?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s really frustrating is my black kid has top stats and AA is gone and people will STILL assume there’s some URM hook that got him in to a top college. Nothing is enough for you people.

Yes there are still URM hooks, just not as explicit. You’ve probably known that top stats alone isn’t enough to get others into top colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s really frustrating is my black kid has top stats and AA is gone and people will STILL assume there’s some URM hook that got him in to a top college. Nothing is enough for you people.

This is the problem with DEI. It becomes a double edged sword.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What’s really frustrating is my black kid has top stats and AA is gone and people will STILL assume there’s some URM hook that got him in to a top college. Nothing is enough for you people.

Yes there are still URM hooks, just not as explicit. You’ve probably known that top stats alone isn’t enough to get others into top colleges.

URM and decent stats get the Ivy.

[Anonymous]

TO resulted in the explosion in the number of applicants. The numbers have overwhelmed admissions offices. How can you think going back to test-required won’t help bring the numbers back down? They do want to find diamonds in the rough, as it were, who have 1400s in under resourced areas and are top of their class. But it should help applicants, parents and advisors help kids who are not tippy-top in their particular pool focus their attention on more realistic options and not put in the time on super long-shot applications.

[Anonymous]

Good. The cultural race to the bottom is getting old

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What’s really frustrating is my black kid has top stats and AA is gone and people will STILL assume there’s some URM hook that got him in to a top college. Nothing is enough for you people.

This is the problem with DEI. It becomes a double edged sword.

Only for bigots who see recruitment as favoritism.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What’s really frustrating is my black kid has top stats and AA is gone and people will STILL assume there’s some URM hook that got him in to a top college. Nothing is enough for you people.

This is the problem with DEI. It becomes a double edged sword.

Only for bigots who see recruitment as favoritism.

Shame on you.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:What’s really frustrating is my black kid has top stats and AA is gone and people will STILL assume there’s some URM hook that got him in to a top college. Nothing is enough for you people.

AA is not gone entirely, personal diversity statements are still a thing. It has definitely been diminished, but colleges can still give diversity a boost in the admissions process using methods that don’t involve check the box AA. Some people are just prejudiced. There were so many racist people that said Ketanji Brown was a DEI hire, which is just ridiculous. She was in the top 25% of her class for undergrad and top half of her class in law school (at Harvard). So she is qualified, it’s not like she barely finished law school. I think Biden to some extent is diminishing her accomplishments by saying he was going to pick a Black Women for SCOTUS. She is highly qualified for this job and he could have picked her without explicitly stating that this was a selection criteria. Unfortunately, some people have a hard time accepting that someone else might be smarter than them, especially if they look different.

Wasn’t her entire dissent in the aff action reversal based on her personal “lived experience” with not one cited precedent?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:95% will STILL get rejected.

Yawn.

Maybe more like 90% now

Average of last 10+ classes acceptance rates suggests otherwise.

#clueless

Application numbers dropping will help rate.

In the first year, without TO, they may drop. But within a year or two, they will go back up again, when people realize that Harvard does, and always hasm accepted students with 1400 SATs. Strong students will get admitted with those scores and more eligible students will apply. TO kept so many qualifed students from applying that the student bodies just aren't of the quality they were before TO--and no, not because "stupid" kids with low scores who hid them were admitted, but because the admissions committee no longer had as broad a pool to choose from. Again, it's been said here many times, by many posters, reinstating test-required does not benefit the rich, white Yorktown HS kid with the 1530 whose mom thinks didn't get in only because a TO kid took her spot.

TO hasn’t kept ANYONE from applying these past few yrs - applications have exploded at the top 50 schools. It’s ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I mean, obviously. The test optional thing was a weird experiment and there is no evidence that it accomplished anything useful, and some evidence it was genuinely detrimental. Good riddance.

Being good at taking tests is not the most important thing in life and everyone should remind themselves of that. But it turns out that people who do test well, and are able to get very high scores on college preparedness tests, tend to also do best in college, where they will also be expected to regularly take tests. It's okay that not everyone goes to an Ivy, or becomes a lawyer or doctor or academic or MBA or whatever. It's not the only option in life.

Just realize that Harvard isn't going to accept your kids with a 1580 over one with a 1500 based on the SAT alone. They will consider them "the same"/made the cut, and then look at everything else. I don't think requiring tests will have the effect most "high stats" parents want.
Fact is T20 schools only want to see your kid meet a baseline for the testing, then they still want to look at everything else. A 1600 doesn't differentiate your kid from a 1520 kid really.
These schools will still be highly rejective.

I think everyone knows this. What they object to is a 1300 SAT kid who hides that score, goes TO and gets in on some 'woke' quota. Hopefully this fixes that!

Woke quota?! Omg I never cease to be amazed by the things that people will actually say (type). Do you assume that the URM students that you see have lower scores? How racist.

I assume the bolded is true because, in fact, this is exactly what Harvard's own data showed in the discovery portion of the SCt case

Not only is the PP is who too short on vocabulary to express what they're trying to say a jerk, but they're also flat-out wrong. In fact, the reinstatement of test scores is so they CAN let in students with lower scores. Maybe 1300 will be a little low, but not, they can see that students with high GPAs from little-known or underperforming schools are capable of doing the work at their universities--and 1400 SAT scores prove that. All this narrative about the highest scores doing "the best" in college really doesn't matter. Students with 1400 scores and high GPAs from their high schools deserve an opportunity to have an excellent education. They don't have to be top students in the Ivy League, they just deserve the chance. Reinstatement of test scores allows that to happen. Again, understand, this is not to put a barrier in front of students with lower scores who were "hiding" them. It is to remove it.

This wall of text doesn't refute PP's statement of facts in the Harvard case. In the years examined, Black and Hispanic students who applied scored far lower than white or Asian kids who applied

Whether Harvard wants to admit the lower scoring kids of color is a separate issue.

DP: But that is the argument that several posters have pointed out on this thread. Yes, the Harvard SC case revealed that the average URM score was lower than that of White/Asian accepted students.

Elite schools are going back to test required to continue equity/DEI initiatives. This allows them to take a lower-scoring URM student that they believe will be able to do the work and not take the risk of accepting these students TO and further lawsuits.

So let them do that and we will see what the average test scores are going forward. It was the hiding of low test scores by TO applicants that felt so grossly unfair.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:test optional was a failed experiment

it wasn't an experiment it was due to testing centers closing during the pandemic

My 2023 and 2024 kids had plenty of opportunities to take and retake the SAT over most of their high school years.

The only graduating years that should have been test optional was class of 2021.

Instead, they doubled down on test optional, and ended up with a bunch of kids from the "you get an A if you login to most of your classes and do this quizlet" generation with school shut-down inflated grades, lack of skills needed for rigorous classes, and no impartial SAT to show whether or not they possessed the intellect to overcome the significant deficiencies of their pandemic "school" years.

Yup, this makes me sad for my dd who was 2023 and had very good SAT scores. Fortunately, she loves where she wound up.

So you believe some stupid kid who had a lower score but didn't have to show it took her spot? Seriously?

I can guarantee that happened.

DD22 at Ivy and her TO roommate already has 2 C’s. She heard another boy bragging abt his 19 ACT who got in TO.

2 girls from the middle of the pack at our private school made it to HYP TO.

Some URM but some aren’t. Some are celeb kids. Her roommate is Asian.

I mean there are countless kids that bonused in the TO era (‘21 - ‘23 grad classes). It was so unfair.

Help me understand why it's "unfair." You truly think that only students who can get a score above the, let's say, 96th percentile, and can prove that they will get a 3.5 GPA or better once they get there, should be allowed the opportunity to go to a top university? What if the student who has a lower score worked harder than your top scorer? They overcame learning disabilities and a massive wealth gap to earn top GPAs despite their low standardized test score? You think they just don't deserve it because they can't earn a score over 1500? Why do you think that? What makes it "fair" for the first kid to get the opportunity and the second one not to? Because that second kid will graduate with a 3.0 or maybe even a 2.8, instead of a 3.5? So what? As an aside, your horror at a kid having "2 Cs already" would be funny if it weren't so absurd. Cs get degrees, and I would be willing to bet her TO roommate is a heck of a lot more likeable than your DD. Why does she know, much less care, about her TO roommate's grades? I am going to guess they will not room together next year. I sure as heck would my counsel my DD to move on if your DD was her roommate and there was any chance she would encounter a rascist like you.

Not everyone gets to go Ivy. Mediocres who can’t spell “racist” but hurl it about endlessly should look elsewhere. Deal with it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:test optional was a failed experiment

it wasn't an experiment it was due to testing centers closing during the pandemic

My 2023 and 2024 kids had plenty of opportunities to take and retake the SAT over most of their high school years.

The only graduating years that should have been test optional was class of 2021.

Instead, they doubled down on test optional, and ended up with a bunch of kids from the "you get an A if you login to most of your classes and do this quizlet" generation with school shut-down inflated grades, lack of skills needed for rigorous classes, and no impartial SAT to show whether or not they possessed the intellect to overcome the significant deficiencies of their pandemic "school" years.

Yup, this makes me sad for my dd who was 2023 and had very good SAT scores. Fortunately, she loves where she wound up.

So you believe some stupid kid who had a lower score but didn't have to show it took her spot? Seriously?

I can guarantee that happened.

DD22 at Ivy and her TO roommate already has 2 C’s. She heard another boy bragging abt his 19 ACT who got in TO.

2 girls from the middle of the pack at our private school made it to HYP TO.

Some URM but some aren’t. Some are celeb kids. Her roommate is Asian.

I mean there are countless kids that bonused in the TO era (‘21 - ‘23 grad classes). It was so unfair.

Help me understand why it's "unfair." You truly think that only students who can get a score above the, let's say, 96th percentile, and can prove that they will get a 3.5 GPA or better once they get there, should be allowed the opportunity to go to a top university? What if the student who has a lower score worked harder than your top scorer? They overcame learning disabilities and a massive wealth gap to earn top GPAs despite their low standardized test score? You think they just don't deserve it because they can't earn a score over 1500? Why do you think that? What makes it "fair" for the first kid to get the opportunity and the second one not to? Because that second kid will graduate with a 3.0 or maybe even a 2.8, instead of a 3.5? So what? As an aside, your horror at a kid having "2 Cs already" would be funny if it weren't so absurd. Cs get degrees, and I would be willing to bet her TO roommate is a heck of a lot more likeable than your DD. Why does she know, much less care, about her TO roommate's grades? I am going to guess they will not room together next year. I sure as heck would my counsel my DD to move on if your DD was her roommate and there was any chance she would encounter a rascist like you.

Not everyone gets to go Ivy. Mediocres who can’t spell “racist” but hurl it about endlessly should look elsewhere. Deal with it.

And NP here who also believes that life isn’t fair and that there really is a section of the general population who is more intelligent and intellectually capable than the vast majority of people in this world. We are not all equal in ability! We should have equal opportunity to show our abilities, but that does not mean all are capable of the same things. Such is life. And thank god for that otherwise all the important scientific breakthroughs and amazing novels and such would never have been found or written, etc! You think that the COVID vac was developed by a people who got a 1300 on the SAT? Probably not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Indeed.

Some posters on here were very confident that Yale and Brown and Dartmouth resuming testing requirements were the exceptions.

Pretty clear by now that test optional admits had not very good outcomes.

+1 so surprising, right?!