In July 2020, following a trend set by swaths of universities across the country, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that it would no longer require SAT or ACT scores for admission. Less than two years later, it reinstated the requirement.
MIT is not alone. In the waning of the test-optional trend, every single Ivy League school except Columbia University has announced it is restoring some form of standardized testing requirement.
Let’s be clear here — the SAT is not a perfect test, nor is it a magic wand that single-handedly erases the massive inequities in the college application process. College admissions are deeply unfair, especially at the most selective schools in the country. But the reinstatement of standardized testing requirements across the nation isn’t simply a result of elitism; they reveal a fact many are unwilling to recognize: SAT scores are useful.
Without test scores, students’ academic qualifications are determined primarily by their high school GPA — which anti-SAT advocates point out is a more equitable metric, since it has a weaker correlation with race and income levels. However, “more equitable” doesn’t necessarily mean “better.” GPA is a terrible metric with which to compare students for precisely the same reason that SAT scores are important: standardization. Grading and course rigor vary wildly between high schools, but the SAT maintains the same difficulty no matter where students are tested. It’s likely GPA only seems more equitable because it’s less standardized — based on the classes someone takes, the teachers they get and the free time they have.
On that note, there’s a cause-and-effect issue with the equity arguments. Are the differences between SAT scores among different races and income groups the result of a biased test, or does the test simply measure and reflect existing inequities in education? It’s almost certainly a mix of the two. The former argument holds particular strength in the SAT’s reading and writing section, in which test-takers analyze passages that often follow more bourgeois topics — art museums, for example. Meanwhile, the latter argument makes more sense for the math section: It’s not like rich students are naturally better at algebra.
Regardless, the correlation between SAT score and socioeconomic status is real. It’s just not as strong as legions of anti-SAT op-eds would have you believe.
What about expensive prep courses and private tutoring? If wealthier students can spend their way to the top, that draws into question the effectiveness of test scores as a measurement. Well, a study by The Ohio State University found that such programs, on average, only result in an increase of around 30-40 SAT points — about the test’s standard error of measurement. Instead, tutoring has much stronger proven effects on students’ GPAs.
None of that’s to say that GPA is useless. Many studies have demonstrated that it holds significant predictive power for college success, and some maintain that it’s an even stronger predictor than test scores, although research in that area is mixed. But they also indicate that considering a student’s test scores and GPA is more effective than just one or the other.
By combining the two, test scores help in identifying the so-called “diamonds in the rough,” students who have a low GPA but high test scores, and the reverse — students who are not academically qualified, but attend extremely grade-inflated schools.
Getting rid of standardized tests may intuitively seem like a good idea, but reality often isn’t that simple. In order to truly give all academically qualified students equal opportunity to attend a selective college or university, the whole system needs to be upended.
A research paper penned by economists at Harvard University and Brown University suggests that holistic admissions — meaning the consideration of factors such as essays, extracurricular activities and letters of recommendation — give rich students massive advantages in the admissions process. Decreasing the weighting of these factors, or removing them entirely, would go a long way. Additionally, legacy admissions, the most obviously unfair criterion, must be abolished. Selective institutions also need to expand their class sizes to accommodate the high number of academically qualified students in the absence of holistic considerations.
Unfortunately, such ideas are a daydream: Entirely academic merit-based admissions at selective universities have never been the norm in the U.S., and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.
But even if all those factors were removed, rich students would still have an advantage. That’s because inequality doesn’t stem from college admissions, nor standardized test scores. It’s baked into the world we live in. If the system is to be amended, its renovation must begin at an earlier stage.
