Standardized Tests Can Actually Reduce Disparities in College Admissions

Colleges are realizing that it's actually better to have students submit their standardized test scores, and Yale just became the latest the SAT again after many years of not requiring it since the pandemic.

And I think this is a good thing because they're actually looking at the evidence that says, when you look at test scores, you gain information that you wouldn't otherwise have about a student.

When you look at grades and personal essays and recommendation letters and life experiences and high school transcripts and things like that, you're missing information about how well the student will do.

And you're shifting your decision to focus on factors that are easier for wealthier students to game, right?

To manipulate their chances by investing basically their parents' money.

And we don't want to do that, right?

Like we want to have Education be a driver of equity in our society.

And the problem with college admissions is that almost every, well, every single criterion, unless the school specifically weights disadvantage, as some schools do now in their admissions decisions, every single criterion, like you're better off if you have money.

And that's true of life in general, right?

Like you do better at everything if you have more money.

And if we want to change that dynamic, if we want to give opportunity to kids who have less opportunity, we have to find some kind of creative ways to do that.

And surprisingly, one of them is test scores.

Test scores are really good at picking out kids who might not otherwise stand out like their grades might be.

Similar to, you know, like, especially with grade inflation, if everybody has A's, it's pretty hard to predict which kids are going to do well at Yale.

And it matters, right?

It matters who is going to do well.

It matters who's going to actually pass their classes and graduate.

Because if you go to college and take on a whole bunch of loans, you know, some of these schools are like $80,000 a year now.

If you acquire all of this debt and yet you don't graduate, you're worse off.

So it's not enough to just let people into college.

We have to actually match kids with schools that they're going to succeed in.

And standardized test scores are a big part of that.

And back in January, the New York Times had a very in-depth article with a lot of research by economists showing Exactly how test scores can help admissions officers make better decisions about who to admit.

And this is going against some of the ideology that says testing is bad, testing is racist, testing is harmful, and it works against equity.

The evidence is very clear now.

test scores are helpful.

They give admissions officers information that they wouldn't otherwise have that would just get swamped by the effects of wealth.

Like everything else is more gameable than the SAT.

So Yale is just the latest, but there were, you know, Dartmouth I think was in the news recently for doing the same thing.

The University of California system, come on California.

I know I pick on California, but like California is even, in the University of California system, refusing to even look at test scores if you submit them they're not only optional they're not even like you don't even have the option of submitting your scores they're not going to look at them and i think what's happening there is they're they're concerned with the appearance of equity or what ken williams calls cosm equity but they're not willing to look at the data about what actually drives equity and if you want to increase equity in higher education you have to be willing to look at test scores so i think that's what more universities need to do let me know what you think