Standardized tests aren’t being demonized for hurting diversity; they’re being criticized for not being a good predictor of college performance.
In theory there is nothing wrong with the theory, but in practice it’s broken.
The SATs were never supposed to be one of only a few criteria deciding admissions, but that’s exactly what happened. Test scores are black and white, no pun intended, and in a sea of subjective criteria, it’s hard not to lean heavily on GPA or a test score that makes decisions easy–and defensible even to a degree.
Like it or not, the way they were and likely would be used would benefit the wealthy and racial groups who already have many advantages.
Their strongest correlation the SAT has is the ability to identify the socioeconomic status of a tester’s parents. When that is the result, it’s impossible to make it not be used regressively.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“Test scores have vastly more predictive power than is commonly understood in the popular debate,” said John Friedman, an economics professor at Brown and one of the authors of the Ivy Plus admissions study.
If test scores are used as one factor among others — and if colleges give applicants credit for having overcome adversity — the SAT and ACT can help create diverse classes of highly talented students.
The administrators believed that these students would go on to strengthen the country’s elite institutions, which were dominated by a narrow group of white Protestants, as Nicholas Lemann explained in “The Big Test,” his history of the SAT.
This similarity “is another piece of evidence that the SAT is picking up fundamentals,” said Raj Chetty, a Harvard economics professor who conducted the recent Ivy Plus study with Friedman and David Deming.
remains committed to maintaining a fair admissions process that reviews every applicant in a comprehensive manner and endeavors to combat systemic inequities.” University spokespeople declined to discuss the policy by telephone or to schedule an interview with an administrator.
In recent years, Americans on the left have been reluctant to acknowledge that extended Covid school closures were a mistake, that policing can reduce crime and that drug legalization can damage public health.
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