Dartmouth Announces Test Scores Required Starting Next Year

[Anonymous]

Absolutely


A kid from a Baltimore City school where most of their classmates are illiterate who can score a 1400 SAT is clearly wicked brilliant, perhaps even a genius, and probably incredibly focused and driven.

Welp, as the parent of a high testing kid in a Baltimore City Public High school (yes, they do exist), I hope you're right!

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:A huge blow to the DEI crowd.

And with legacy beginning to be pulled as well at many colleges...hopefully, we can enter a 'merit-based' admissions era.

I feel like people aren’t reading the article.

Dartmouth is basically saying we will take lots of kids with SAT scores in the 1300s and 1400s coming from disadvantaged schools.

I don’t see how that will help the 1580 Asian kid from TJ. Those parents will be crying louder than ever.

That is not at all what the article said.

Ok, what did it say...here is a direct quote:

“We’re looking for the kids who are excelling in their environment. We know society is unequal,” Beilock said. “Kids that are excelling in their environment, we think, are a good bet to excel at Dartmouth and out in the world.” The admissions office will judge an applicant’s environment partly by comparing his or her test score with the score distribution at the applicant’s high schools, Coffin said. In some cases, even an SAT score well below 1,400 can help an application.

No,

You are misreading.

The article said that kids at those lower performing schools (such as a school where most kids graduate at a 3rd grade reading level or no one takes calculus) with scores in that range (1400+/-) are kids who have proven they can succeed at a school like Dartmouth. In contrast, a kid from a wealthy school with every resource at thier disposal who still only has a middling SAT score but high GPA will struggle.

That statement is talking about the potential to resources ratio. It is not a statement about a hard cut off of test scores.

You are completely misreading the entire article.

My comment was in response to someone claiming that now schools will admit purely on merit. Dartmouth's policy will now accept plenty of kids with a 1300 or 1400 from an under-resourced school vs. the TJ kid with a 1580. It's not even about a wealthy school vs. non-wealthy school (at least from the perspective of student-body wealth).

The TJ parents will continue to cry that the world is biased against them because their 1580 kid was rejected by Dartmouth while some 1300 kid from Harlem public schools was admitted.

Eliminating test optional means the 1580 TJ kid has a reasonable shot against all the other 1500+ applicants, instead of hetting shut out by a rich 4.0 kid with a 1200 SAT who went test optional.

This change benefits the brilliant 1500 kids from affluent or middle class backgrounds. It also benefits the poor white trailer park kid from the meth corridor of the midwest, or the Baltimore City Schools minority kid, who achieved a 1350 or 1400 SAT, in spite of attending a school district where 90% of the students are "graduated" functionally illiterate and unable to do more than 2nd grade math.

In all 3 of those cases, the 1580 TJ kid, the meth corridor poor white kid, and the minority Baltimore city schools kid, returning to test required means the system is returning to a merit based system.

The best and brightest will rise to the top in all 3 scenarios.

Test optional cuts those 3 brilliant kids from a fair shot, in favor of average kids with inflated grades and expensive extracurriculars, raised in wealth, stability and privilege.

I am sorry...you are giving those parents way too much credit. That's not how they define merit. They define merit fairly simplistically...1580 > 1350 period. They don't care about circumstances or potential. To them, the kid that showed more merit was rejected over a kid that showed far less merit.

Sure, they also are happy the rich TO kid is no longer a factor...but literally the way they would run college acceptances is send SAT scores and just go down the list from highest to lowest and that is the first cut of applicants (because there will be thousands with the same scores). So, basically only kids with probably a 1550+ would remain, and now you look at their application.

They don't care about potential.

I think this post shows that the ones freaking out about test optional going away are the rich dc moms demographic parents whose kids are average intelligence (roughly 65 to 85 stanines) with inflated grades.

The parents of kids with very high test scores are thrilled because they understand that this levels the playing field and makes admissions more fair, including for very smart kids from underserved communities.

It will be two groups...the group you mention above and the groups that believe that a high SAT score/high stats = guaranteed admission to a top school (which is also a large group).

You clearly do not have a kid in the top SAT tier.

I have 2, and one below in the mid 80s stanine.

Parents of kids in that range are perfectly understanding of their kids losing slots to kids also in that range.

They understand slots going to a kid from a school such as a Baltimore public high school, who demonstrated their brilliance with a 1400 score range, in spite of goi g to such a horrible incompetent school system.

They are not okay with their rich classmate who cheats in class to get a high GPA, but submitted test optional because of their 1200 SAT, getting spots over the 2 brilliant kids described above.

My kid is currently at a Top 5 school and had a 1580 test score (white, not Asian). I am in that group and I also don't care why or how some kids got accepted TO. I also, don't care if the Baltimore public high school kid with a 1300 gets accepted.

However, our circle for the most part doesn't believe this (mainly Asian and white). So, quit making outlandish statements that represent only your perspective.

There is a significant number of parents that believe college should be a completely stats-driven process. They don't care why that Baltimore public school kid only scored 1300...they still don't believe that kid deserves acceptance over anyone with a higher score.

So based on your circle, you are assuming that while you are meritorious and magnanimous, most of the other parents are not.

Based on my circle and experiences, I assume the opposite. I think that most parents of 1500 plus kids will be very happy with test optional going away, not because they think their kid is now a shoo in, but because their kid is not going compare their rejection against the classmate with a 1200 unsubmitted SAT and an acceptance.

They are not going to get spun in circles over the 1400 kid from Baltimore City, because clearly that kid is a lot smarter than most of their rich classmates.

Not magnanimous…just don’t really care why or how the next kid was accepted.

We both agree TO going away is a good thing…but that still doesn’t placate a large crowd that test scores/stats are the ONLY thing in their minds.

So, that crowd doesn’t want to hear that Dartmouth is taking some poor kid with a 1300 because they at least want to believe that poor kid also scored a 1500.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Fantastic!
Goodbye to the "bad at test taking" dopes with their grade inflated 4.0s.

What Dartmouth is saying is that it will now be able to accept more kids who are bad at test taking. Oops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fantastic!
Goodbye to the "bad at test taking" dopes with their grade inflated 4.0s.

What Dartmouth is saying is that it will now be able to accept more kids who are bad at test taking. Oops.

That is not at all what Dartmouth said.

Compression is an important skill.

[Anonymous]

is anyone following the conversation on Applying To College (reddit)? A couple kids giving the mod there some pushback on giving the "submit if above 25% cut off" advice that's he's handed out to every kid this year. he had a blanket, "submit if above 50%" last year.

Poor kids should have submitted if they had those 1420s, even if that was under the 25%~

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fantastic!
Goodbye to the "bad at test taking" dopes with their grade inflated 4.0s.

What Dartmouth is saying is that it will now be able to accept more kids who are bad at test taking. Oops.

Look at the chart above - Dartmouth barely takes anyone regardless if the kid is "good" or "bad" at testing. It's not worth it to retake the SAT at 1530 because it barely move the odds of admission, even if you score a 1600 the next time around.

[Anonymous]

I'm going to take it further. I think they should rank SAT like they do class rank. Shoud show top % in 3% increments. That way colleges can very much see context and would be a huge boost for kids who are able to overcome in horrible school districts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fantastic!
Goodbye to the "bad at test taking" dopes with their grade inflated 4.0s.

What Dartmouth is saying is that it will now be able to accept more kids who are bad at test taking. Oops.

That is not at all what Dartmouth said.

Compression is an important skill.

but I bet the average SAT will still be like 1500

[Anonymous]

Fantastic! Cannot wait to read through the rage posts in this thread from the parents who have been gloating over their success in finally vanquishing those cursed standardized tests!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fantastic!
Goodbye to the "bad at test taking" dopes with their grade inflated 4.0s.

What Dartmouth is saying is that it will now be able to accept more kids who are bad at test taking. Oops.

Look at the chart above - Dartmouth barely takes anyone regardless if the kid is "good" or "bad" at testing. It's not worth it to retake the SAT at 1530 because it barely move the odds of admission, even if you score a 1600 the next time around.

well, I'm not sure if that's true. looks like 1530 is in the 14% range and 1600 is 22%? that's a big jump. I think 1530 to 1550 is probably not worth the squeeze

[Anonymous]

Nothingburger.. Schools are already weighing test scores heavily in their admission process while take your test optional kids' application money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nothingburger.. Schools are already weighing test scores heavily in their admission process while take your test optional kids' application money.

tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article

[Anonymous]

Meh.

Let's wait for Yale and Princeton.

[Anonymous]

This allows Dartmouth to better differentiate among students from low-performing, under-resourced high schools. But they're not going to admit white/asian strivers instead of those students. No way. So it's not what the standardized test absolutists were hoping for. In fact, it's worse for them than test optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothingburger.. Schools are already weighing test scores heavily in their admission process while take your test optional kids' application money.

tell me you didn't read the article without telling me you didn't read the article

Stop using this phrase...you have to be the same poster on multiple threads and it is annoying.