Dartmouth returns to requiring standardized testing
I was reading a mailing I got from the Chronicle of Higher Education (I don’t remember why I started getting them; it’s my wife’s thing) and I found it worth sharing. I’ll summarize here.
Dartmouth has decided, after COVID, to return to requiring standardized testing. The interesting thing here is why.
Standardized testing turns out to be a better predictor of college performance than GDP is, and that has something to do with it, but it’s not the most interesting reason.
Students had the option of not including standardized test scores in their applications. However, Dartmouth has access to the scores after the fact. They started looking and discovered that some poorer minority students who hadn’t submitted test scores and were rejected would have been admitted had they submitted their scores. What’s going on?
Test scores can be affected by the quality of your education. Unbeknownst to the students, the admissions department was already allowing for that. It never occurred to the students that their standardized test scores would be weighted.
02/07/2024 @ 1:28 am
happenstance, a coin’s twirl
unintended consequence
new flash cards called SPEED
X’s in square faint box
al-go-rith-mic: ground zero LO:}
lead pencils so red?
insouciant quirk
probably not set for dreams
command error: reams
02/07/2024 @ 9:54 am
I have thoughts, although perhaps skewed by working at a college dedicated to art and design. We suspended the SAT requirement a few years before covid. Our primary qualifier is a portfolio and a B average. Full time faculty are rotated into serving on admissions, so I’ve seen many excellent portfolios combined with below 3 GPAs. We usually accept those applicants. Even when we had an SAT requirement, no one paid too much attention.
At Dartmouth, I‘m guessing minority students assumed their SATs would not be competitive with wealthy white legacy applicants, kids who often have SAT prep in high school and/or professional prep services paid for by their parents. Minority students probably had strong GPAs plus other accomplishments and extra-curricular activities, and perhaps figured that SAT scores might lower their overall score. I don’t know how Dartmouth does preliminary applicant sorting…we do it by ranking a variety of preliminary criteria plus/check/minus. Applicants with multiple minuses don’t move to the next review phase.
It will be interesting to see if other schools follow Dartmouth, am guessing they will. As tuition goes up, applications are going down as people choose options other than four year colleges, so colleges are trying to attract more flies with better honey. They are also using assorted ways around disappeared affirmative action. Fewer admission requirements tend to attract more minority applicants, also in art school, some unique creative souls.
02/09/2024 @ 10:28 am
Yes, I think the nature of your institution would skew how you view standardized tests. There isn’t a Spatial SAT. I wish there were; my daughter is no academic but she’d do great on that. As a child, she assembled my wife’s office chair without instructions.
On the other hand:
When I was at Oberlin, they happened to tell us the top three institutions in the state in terms of average SAT scores. Oberlin was at that point top and Antioch was second, an institution which is barely still open if open at all. What was interesting was who was third:
Oberlin Conservatory. The kids who wanted to be professional classical musicians. Arts students.
02/09/2024 @ 11:30 am
Steve, there is no spacial SAT for artists, the SATs are the same. Students submit portfolios and high school transcripts, typically with As in art classes. I wish I could remember what the average applicant SAT score was when we used them. Mine was pretty low as I remember.
My former hub went to Swarthmore for undergrad, applied because he’d heard it was the most difficult college to get in. And can I say that his group of Swarthmore friends were snooty about coming from what they all deemed the best college ever. Hub’s other degrees were a Tufts MA and a Harvard PhD, yet he was proudest of Swarthmore.
Kinda off topic…do you know about the CCRC (continuing care retirement community) at Oberlin? An old art school buddy who is a few years older than I am and an Oberlin grad took residence there last year and has been bending my ear about what a wonderful way it is to retire and live independently in an academic setting.