He Who Shall Be Unnamed said:
double b said:
Brown University just announced.
Brown University to reinstate test requirement, retain Early Decision, further study legacy preferences
I'm curious as to what you think is going on in general with how more selective schools are treating standardized testing now. Test optional seemed like a really good way for them to inflate their test scores (you don't report your score if it isn't good if not great). Also, it allowed them to be more racially diverse without risking being sued for reverse discrimination (no hard data equals no proof). I'm frankly a bit surprised to see some schools going away from being test optional.
So UT-Austin just announced that they are bringing back the SAT/ACT score requirement and are no longer test-optional.
The data suggests that when GPA is coupled with test scores, they provide a lot of information that yields college success. Now, that's not the only information, but the test score is a significant component of determining early success in college.
Now, concerning recruitment/diversity goals, colleges can still meet those goals because they look at each school differently, comparing applicants to the profile of their high school that is shared along with the student's academic transcript. On this profile, this includes information such as type of AP courses offered, average number of AP courses each student takes and how many earn passing AP scores, along with average SAT/ACT scores. The stronger a student performs against their school profile, the more consideration they are given toward their admission decision.
So, a student who attends an inner city public school with an average SAT score of 1100 can shine brighter in the admission pool with a 1300+ SAT score. With the test-optional route, this student may not have submitted their SAT score since it was below the average score of 1450/1500 of some of these more selective schools.
Another reason why many of these schools are bringing back SAT scores is because the application numbers continued to grow each year and making the admission decisions more difficult. With the return of test scores, this should hopefully prevent a small percentage with really low scores from applying and easing the admission decision process more.