Dartmouth is bringing back the SAT for its admissions process.
The college, along with the rest of the Ivy League, stopped requiring standardized test results on applications during Covid … although it was really about “equity,” not the virus.
I have a hunch the rest of the Ivy League schools are going to go back to the SAT and ACT requirement soon, too.
So, what happened? Dartmouth president Sian Beilock said the change was because of a faculty study that showed “standardized test scores are an important predictor of a student’s success in Dartmouth’s curriculum” regardless of the student’s background or income. In fact, a lot of underprivileged students got a boost from their test scores that went away when the requirement was lifted.
One professor said admissions officials considered applicant backgrounds, and were more impressed when a low-income student had great scores. They said it showed the student’s ability to overcome even more obstacles. And, unsurprisingly, it showed which students could handle the rigors of Dartmouth.
Knee-jerk reactions
Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a stupid plan implemented, which then went on to fail (and, often, to fail the very people it was supposed to help).
After George Floyd, several cities “defunded” their police, and even toyed with eliminating them altogether. Crime spiked almost immediately. Thousands more people – mainly young black men – died in a murder spree. And voila – police budgets were once again back in vogue.
In Seattle, that turnaround took just three weeks. Remember CHOP, the “police-free zone” that sprouted up during the riots which burned an actual police station? Officials went from predicting a “summer of love” to shutting down a murderous anarchy zone.
Electric cars were also supposed to be the future. Last year, Hertz pledged to buy almost 350,000 electric vehicles for their rental fleet … but recently announced they were selling off a third of those, thanks to low demand and high costs.
And, after years of parents being told not to question “gender-affirming care” for children who say they’re trans, even the New York Times is investigating whether that’s the safest approach.
So why do professors, politicians, and other elites support ideas that appear outlandishly goofy to the rest of us? It’s because their ideas, protected within the bubble of academia or the cushion of cash, don’t come up against reality. The Hertz CEO probably didn’t have my experience trying to rent an electric car in a small town. The president of Dartmouth hasn’t had to take an SAT in decades.
Sometimes it takes just weeks, sometimes a few years … but when those out-of-touch ideas do get enacted, we usually manage to right ourselves again. In spite of the good intentions and terrible policies of those who think they have all the answers.
– Ken
1. Deny the failure
2. Double down on bad policy (it simply wasn’t tried out robustly enough)
3. Blame Trump
4. Any correction at this point destroys our democracy
5. Change the failed policy during election year hoping only some subset of voters take note and get conned.
I get that they’re in a bubble, but I find the lack of common sense amongst the ‘elite’s’ to be alarming. I mean, these people are making policy decisions for cities/companies/ our country and they can’t figure out that defunding the police is a bad idea without trying it first? The mind boggles.