After bowing deeply to the false god of “systemic racism,” colleges are regaining a bit of their lost common sense.
Harvard recently announced that it would again start requiring the SAT or ACT for student admissions, following similar decisions at MIT, Dartmouth, Yale, Georgetown, and others. It's a welcome turnabout.
When the schools dropped the tests, they unsurprisingly blamed Covid-19. The virus had become the go-to cover for a number of progressive causes, from massive spending bills to expanded mail-in ballots.
Yet their timing was more telling than their words. Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth all dropped their testing requirements in June of 2020. As you history buffs may recall, George Floyd was killed in May of 2020, and June was a riot-and-fire-filled month. It was all part of that summer’s “We’re not racist!” performance art.
The schools didn’t consider the long-term implications of abandoning standardized testing and instead focused on short-term virtue signaling. As a result, the quality of their incoming classes suffered, and they soon realized “defunding the SAT” was a mistake.
No tests are perfect, but standardized college testing brings a lot to the table. With grade inflation and wildly different academic standards from school to school, GPAs alone don’t offer great insight into student aptitude. Admissions officers need a common yardstick, and research consistently shows that SAT scores, along with high school grades, are the best predictors of college success.
More than any other factor, they level out the playing field for kids of all backgrounds. That was their fatal flaw, of course. On average, minorities score lower, which to some is proof of a rigged system.
But it’s not the test that’s rigged, it’s society. We could – and should – talk for hours about why some subgroups of American children get a substandard education. It’s a failing of our society but throwing away the yardstick isn’t the answer. That always hurts the disadvantaged.
Colleges know this, of course, but they got a two-fer. They could both please progressive activists who call the tests racist, and at the same time make it harder for anyone to prove that colleges are still playing racial favorites. As colleges fear lawsuits for racial discrimination against whites and Asians, those lawsuits become harder to prove when there’s no common benchmark.
Ironically, standardized tests often help disadvantaged kids by revealing their academic potential. Stellar SAT scores give admissions officers a reason to take a second look at applicants from underserved communities whose GPAs may not reflect their true abilities. Used properly as part of a holistic review, test scores can promote diversity through merit.
Now, with the moral panic receding and a growing body of research reaffirming the value of testing, schools are sheepishly reinstating the SAT. They're realizing that ignoring such a powerful predictor of student success is unsustainable.
It's high time we stopped letting baseless accusations of racism dictate education policy. Restoring the SAT is a victory for merit, objectivity, and academia.
If only elite universities were willing to admit everything else they’ve gotten wrong lately.
– Ken
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