For quite a few years, colleges and universities were backing away from the requirement that students seeking admission show an SAT or ACT score. The justification given was that the tests were unfair to minority students, a claim often debunked, but like so many leftist claims, nobody cared about the truth. Then came Covid, and many more schools dropped the test requirements when they couldn’t be administered.
Now there’s a bit of good news: Some schools have reinstated their standardized-test requirement, and Graham Hillard writes about it in today’s Martin Center article:
The elimination of testing requirements was always political. Concerned that standardized tests were biased against minority high schoolers, university officials used the fig leaf of the pandemic to institute “test-optional” policies. As Dartmouth now acknowledges, however, those worries were not based in reality. ‘The research suggests this tool is helpful in finding students we might otherwise miss,’ Dartmouth president Sian Beilock told the New York Times. The Gray Lady’s paraphrase is even blunter: “The evidence [doesn’t] support” claims alleging racial damage.
Some college leaders have said the obvious — standardized tests help them figure out which applicants have a good chance at academic success and which ones don’t. How nice that they’re standing up to the “anti-racist” crowd for once.