Back on 6/29/23 in a landmark judgment, the US Supreme Court ruled the race-based admissions at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina as illegal. The 6-3 ruling dominated by a conservative supermajority effectively puts a closure to a decades-long effort to diversify higher education … but does it?
Recently a four-person committee of professors at Dartmouth went about reevaluating the use of test scores (SAT or ACT) in deciding who gets admitted to college.
From the New York Times:
“Three Dartmouth economists and a sociologist then dug into the numbers. … One of their main findings did not surprise them: Test scores were a better predictor than high school grades — or student essays and teacher recommendations — of how well students would fare at Dartmouth. The evidence of this relationship is large and growing.”
To me this is not a surprise as some high schools are known to have inflated grades, and with essays, how can anyone be sure who actually wrote them.
Again from the NYT:
“A second finding was more surprising. During the pandemic, Dartmouth switched to a test-optional policy, in which applicants could choose whether to submit their SAT and ACT scores. And this policy was harming lower-income applicants in a specific way.
The researchers were able to analyze the test scores even of students who had not submitted them to Dartmouth. (Colleges can see the scores after the admissions process is finished.) Many lower-income students, it turned out, had made a strategic mistake.
“They withheld test scores that would have helped them get into Dartmouth. They wrongly believed that their scores were too low, when in truth the admissions office would have judged the scores to be a sign that students had overcome a difficult environment and could thrive at Dartmouth.
“That finding, as much as any other, led to Dartmouth’s announcement this morning. ‘Our goal at Dartmouth is academic excellence in the service of training the broadest swath of future leaders,’ said Siam Beilock, the new President of Dartmouth, ‘I’m convinced by the data that this will help us do that.’
“It’s worth acknowledging a crucial part of this story. Dartmouth admits disadvantaged students who have scores that are lower on average than those of privileged students. The college doesn’t apologize for that. Students from poor neighborhoods or troubled high schools have effectively been running with wind in their face. They are not competing fairly with affluent teenagers.”
So is this a good idea? It is fair to view affluent and less affluent college applicants differently?
My answers … “Yes!” and “Yes!”
This is clearly not race based as it affects those applicants of all races, white, black, or brown.
Hopefully the rest of the woke colleges and universities will soon realize the error of their ways and reinstitute the SAT & ACT in helping determine who is admitted.
2/10/24