"They were more likely to come from a higher-income neighborhood, have a higher high school GPA, have completed more rigorous high school coursework. Test-submitters were also more likely to apply for majors in science, technology, engineering or math. Test-optional admissions led to an increased volume in applications but didn’t lead to changes in applicant characteristics, such as race or income level, compared to previous admissions cycles."
From "Here’s what early results of UW-Madison’s ACT/SAT test-optional experiment show" (Madison.com).
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"Test-optional admissions led to an increased volume in applications but didn’t lead to changes in applicant characteristics"
Any change from going test-optional depends on how scores were used previously. If different races were already admitted with very different scores, and low-scoring blacks were already admitted at high rates, then the new policy won't necessarily have much effect. If the policy does result in admitting less capable students on average, effects will be less noticeable if faculty ramp up the grade inflation or dumb down the curriculum.
I am surprised that females are less likely to submit -- I think females have higher scores than males on average, so you'd think more female applicants would seek to maximise their chances by disclosing vs male. Perhaps differing male/female interest in STEM explains the variance.
Or perhaps there is a difference in subjective beliefs about the application process, e.g. males believe that, all things being equal, they will be discriminated against in the application process, so they disclose scores to improve their chances starting at a lower threshhold, but females don't, so their threshhold is higher? I would be interested in foreign vs immigrant Asian applicant comparisons -- anecdotally, my impression is that Asians raised in Asia are more likely to believe that discretionary factors will work to their advantage and test scores to their disadvantage, while first generation immigrants are more likely to believe the reverse, which could lead to differing patterns of test score disclosure.
Defund all colleges. Students are unruly, and aren't there to learn anymore. They are there to be activists. So much for having discussions about race.
You can't have discussions with people who hate you and want you dead.
This is disgusting behavior that is happening everyday in colleges in America.
The fascists are in charge.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10707747/Moment-woke-mob-hunts-female-student-invited-black-Republican-speak.html
If the University of Wisconsin system is accepting 90% of its applicants, the main requirement for admission appears to be are you breathing? Requiring SAT or ACT test scores wouldn't have much effect on the makeup of an incoming freshman class if pretty much everyone gets in anyway.
Why even require grades? Grades are racist too.
Human cultures and traditions don't move on a dime, and some show no evidence of moving at all. Parental expectations for children's careers were often set by their grandparents or before. Employer expectations don't change much because of political winds. Job requirements remain without a test requirement, and those who take the tests are confirming their suitability prior to starting an expensive degree program. Tests are often self-imposed career counseling, and a wise use of time. Obviously.
The large majority of engineers are male, and either White or Asian males at a that. Very few women anywhere in the world have demonstrated interest in say, designing new tractors, backhoes, and road graders. Loads of men love this, and are paid highly because of the demand for machines to build new houses, schools, hospitals, and to feed children. For use by those who want to use said buildings or eat.
Many careers require heavy math or science knowledge, and these classes tend to be difficult. So, if you don't get everyone into the qualifying loop they will fail by the time the ACT/SAT comes around. Dropping the college entry tests merely denies admitting to their lack of appropriate education for a longer period. Shall we point fingers at the urban teachers unions? Urban mayors? Parents? This is left-wing on left-wing criticism, but the only possible points of failure in the left ideological model.
Money talks, bullshit walks.
Applicants submitting scores were less likely to be female, Black, Hispanic, first-generation and eligible for a Pell grant.
Those people are selected largely because they are female, Black, Hispanic, first-generation or poor.
Their intelligence and aptitude are largely irrelevant to their selection.
In contrast, White males are selected largely because of their intelligence and aptitude.
I'm not sure how this is surprising.
It's like underwear models being the first to strip down to their bathing suits at a pool party : )
Hard for me to say how much of a fail this is looking to be. In a rational world you'd think the test-takers were likely to be admitted at a greater rate (they self-select and only include their score if it's good), and the other kids would avoid the stigma of a poor score but would not get what they want, which is admission. But in this world? If the test-takers get higher admissions, there will be hell to pay. It must be due to the racism/sexism/privilege of their family background and work habits; the test score is merely a manifestation of that structural inequity.
Pass the popcorn.
Surprisingly! 100% of applicants that submitted test scores had GOOD test scores!!!!
Statisticians are scratching their heads, trying to get their heads* around this.
Also, surprisingly; female, Black, Hispanic, first-generation and poorer students (eligible for a Pell grant), did not perform as well on tests as the high scoring white males
(HOWEVER! DID do MUCH better than the Low scoring white males)
heads* presumably, the scratching made their heads more flexible?
The SAT does a good job identifying students with exceptional intellectual ability. The only problem is these kids are ethnic Whites, Jewish or Asian. That's a big problem. How can we organize our country as a natural meritocracy if our leaders aren't Black or White Americans? You guys could barely tolerate Michael Dukakis or Spiro Agnew!
I bet the average score skyrocketed.
MIT released a statement after their first year of matriculated students without SAT/ACT and concluded "our ability to accurately predict student academic success at MIT02 is significantly improved by considering standardized testing — especially in mathematics — alongside other factors
some standardized exams besides the SAT/ACT can help us evaluate readiness, but access to these other exams is generally more socioeconomically restricted03 relative to the SAT/ACT
as a result, not having SATs/ACT scores to consider tends to raise socioeconomic barriers to demonstrating readiness for our education,04 Although our analysis is specific to MIT, our findings directionally align with a major study conducted by the University of California’s Standardized Testing Task Force, which found that including SAT/ACT scores predicted undergraduate performance better than grades alone, and also helped admissions officers identify well-prepared students from less-advantaged backgrounds. It is also consistent with independent research compiled by education researcher Susan Dynarski that shows standardized testing can be an effective way to identify talented disadvantaged students who would otherwise go unrecognized. Of course, there may be institutions for whom this research does not hold true, but the findings are very robust for MIT, and have been for many, many years.relative to having them, given these other inequalities
Our research can’t explain why these tests are so predictive of academic preparedness for MIT, but we believe it is likely related to the centrality of mathematics — and mathematics examinations — in our education. All MIT students, regardless of intended major, must pass two semesters of calculus, plus two semesters of calculus-based physics, as part of our General Institute Requirements.05 The substance and pace of these courses are both very demanding, and they culminate in long, challenging final exams that students must pass06 to proceed with their education.07 In other words, there is no path through MIT that does not rest on a rigorous foundation in mathematics, and we need to be sure our students are ready for that as soon as they arrive.08 "
Admit it or not, most rigorous universities know this and will see many failures in their admitted classes compared to before when SAT/ACT was considered and will more quietly return to requiring them. Why set up people to fail (after taking their money!)
Next, show the data for remedial Math, Reading and English classes for the incoming freshmen described in the article, compared to the past 5 years of freshman classes. I dare ya.
I think all applicants should be accepted. After the first year those with the highest GPA should be offered admission to the second year. All others, thanks for attending and best wishes for success in your future endeavors.
How could this be unfair? It could be unfair because some K-12 schools suck.
I also think that admission to medical schools should be by lottery, there should be no tests and anyone who attends for four years should be granted an MD degree. Let the malpractice lawyers and courts sort them out.
"I think females have higher scores than males on average, so you'd think more female applicants would seek to maximise their chances by disclosing vs male. Perhaps differing male/female interest in STEM explains the variance."
On the SAT, females don't have higher average scores overall- females score a bit higher on the verbal section, but males outperform to a greater degree on the math side. I think what happens is that if given a choice, average scorers and lower are not going to submit test scores if they don't have to, so the pool that does submit are on the right side of the bell-curve for the most part.
"If the University of Wisconsin system is accepting 90% of its applicants, the main requirement for admission appears to be are you breathing?"
There's a big difference between "the University of Wisconsin system" and the University of Wisconsin—Madison!
The system is 13 universities and 174,000 students. It's fairly easy to get into one of the branches.
Madison has 34,000 undergraduates. It's hard to get in as a freshman!
When your only chance of admission is on merit, because you rank too low on the social ladder; you go with it.
"Test-optional admissions led to an increased volume in applications but didn’t lead to changes in applicant characteristics, such as race or income level, compared to previous admissions cycles."
It seems this is something they could control for a while, until they're not being watched closely again.
'Madison has 34,000 undergraduates. It's hard to get in as a freshman!'
Still a large school.
My wife's university is only 8,000 now, much less when she went there.
I have been thankful for the reduced SAT use rate for one of my children. Normally I would pile on with the "dumbing down" crowd, but in the case of one of my children who is visually impaired, standardized test don't measure them well. They are a senior now in college and an honor student. SAT would have been a poor predictor of success in this case.
So, standardized tests are, in the majority, a good predictor of performance. Now (no pun intended), if a quality metric could be used to mitigate the progress of prices and quality, and reduce shared/shifted responsibility.
Re: Yancey Ward:
On the SAT, females don't have higher average scores overall- females score a bit higher on the verbal section, but males outperform to a greater degree on the math side.
Ah, I guess I was confusing different data on females outscoring males. Maybe I was remembering something on a total population basis rather than a self-selected SAT basis . . or something. Thanks.
It took several reads of that sentence to determine which group isn't sending in SAT/ACT scores.
Test-submitters were also more likely to apply for majors in science, technology, engineering or math is written right after we read that those who didn't submit tests were more likely to be female (I note they don't say 'women'), Black and Hispanic. I guess that means Guys are still sending in scores. But the article never comes out and actually says that. For some reason.
Guy sitting next to me at the SATs drawing confederate flags in the boxes did end up graduating from college despite his best efforts.
"Including scores from either the ACT or the SAT with your application is optional and you will not be disadvantaged in our evaluation process if you choose to not include these scores for consideration in your application."
That's from the UW-Madison website.
Since they do use the scores in evaluating applications from those who choose to submit them, they must have a two-track system for evaluations - one method for those who submit and and one for those who don't.
Running that two-track system without "disadvantaging" someone might be a bit difficult.
As predicted by Glenn Loury. Also, this is the most obvious way to avoid violating prohibitions on race-based admissions when that prohibition inevitably happens.
"We need more historically underrepresented people for this incoming class!"
"Trash any applicants who disclosed their test scores."
You've just designed another way to produce a dumber student body.
Kids who do not attend one of the 10 or so “named” high schools in a state, public or private, are not going to have their high grades counted equally. The SAT/ACT is the only way these kids can show that they deserve to be admitted. The only way left is to go to the best second tier school you can, and get a 4.0 in hard courses, and transfer to a name school as a junior.
They should just sell the fucking diplomas. Couple hundreds grand, you're a college graduate. They could lay off all the Commie professors and administrators and just straight-up grift. You know they want to.
My daughter applied for college last year. SATs were not required for California schools. We tried signing her up to take the SAT in CA, but testing sites kept getting closed down, and it was nearly impossible to find a location near us. Some of her friends went to AZ or ID to take the SAT. Given the cost of such travel, it's not surprising that lower income people were less likely to take the test. Perhaps there was a similar effect in Wisconsin.
@ typingtalker,
The problem with your plan for medical school admissions is that randomly accepted students will become randomly capable physicians. And while lawsuits *may* sort out (some) poor performers what about the patients who receive inadequate treatment, harmed or killed due to incompetence?
Lord knows quality care becomes harder to find. At an accelerating pace states are licensing "providers" receiving ever-decreasing levels of training. That is, beyond high school, 4 or 2 years total vs. 12 years for physicians. Let's wager who's best prepared to diagnose and treat complex health problem.
So there you are, your wish is coming true. Guaranteed lifetimes of work and glorious income for the malpractice bar. God forbid having an illness that requires full-bore expertise to know what to do...
NOT getting into a good college is not the worst outcome.
Getting into a college and failing, leaving with no degree and a huge student debt load is by far the worst outcome.
Democrats set up lots of POC to achieve the worst outcome. I do not understand this phenomenon.
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