Selective institutions that don’t use standardized tests will fall behind

[Anonymous]

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/mit-leads-the-way-in-reinstating-the-sat-admissions-policies-standardized-testing-college-students-11649185773

MIT Leads the Way in Reinstating the SAT
Expect others to follow. Selective institutions that don’t use standardized tests will fall behind.

[According to race scholar Ibram Kendi, “The use of standardized tests to measure aptitude and intelligence is one of the most effective racist policies ever designed to degrade Black minds and legally exclude Black bodies.”

If that’s true, how is it that a racial minority—Asian students—tend to score highest on the SAT? And how is that even low-income Asians outperform middle-class students from other racial and ethnic groups? Moreover, social science has long demonstrated that the SAT is a better predictor of college performance than high-school grades are for black students, while the reverse is true for white and Asian students.

Thus, black students have the most to lose as schools move away from objective test scores and toward more-subjective holistic assessments of applicants. The University of California system simply ignored the social science and ditched its SAT requirement. MIT should be applauded for putting the interests of students ahead of racial balancing.

Racial differences in test scores are less a reflection of innate intelligence and more a reflection of a young person’s developed academic capabilities. Given that millions of blacks are relegated to some of the worst-performing K-12 schools in the country, why would anyone be surprised by racial gaps in SAT scores? In large cities such as New York and Chicago, most black students cannot read or do math at grade level. Standardized tests aren’t causing these disparities, just revealing them. And the responsible way to address the problem is not by scrapping the test but through more school choice and better test preparation.]
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[Anonymous]

I think getting rid of testing as part of the criteria sounds like a lot of extra work for admissions people. As someone who has been on the periphery of admissions decisions, it's a lot easier to lop off portions of the applicant pool based on some kind of objective criterion, like a test score, and then focus on more subjective criteria for the remainder. Getting rid of scores would make me crazy. It's like choosing a cantaloupe that you think will taste better just by smelling it.

[Anonymous]

Unless USNews changes it's formula and gets rid of the standardized test requirement, the UCs and other test blind schools will drop.

[Anonymous]

Standardized tests will not go away- it will just be optional for some schools. For those that don't like test optional, just take the test. Simple.