“Should colleges and universities—especially those regarded as elite—use the scores students earned on standardized tests in making admissions decisions?”
Actually, they should ONLY use those scores, at least if they really do care about actually educating people.
Only if you're dumb.
They may be imperfect, but they’re the best tool we have.
It’s no kindness to place minorities (or anyone) in colleges above (or below) their capability and preparation levels.
Testing is a good thing. People claim schools spend too much time teaching to the test. Isn’t that the point. They also show where the deficiencies are in the curriculum. The information that comes back is actually quite interesting.
College is an optional education. It is not for everyone. Even for those for whom it is a good option, there are different difficulty levels of colleges that are known but not official.
Standardized tests is a fair way to evaluate the actual knowledge and problem solving abilities of potential students. Based on results, a student is better off understanding which tier of school is the best match. One can be an engineer and go to, say, LSU or could go to MIT. A student needs this information along with the universities so they select and are selected by the best match school.
Essays, extra-circular activities, letters of recommendations, hardships, meh. What do you know and can you reason, problem solve, and critically think are what should be valuable in assessing fitness for college.
That’s a halfway measure. No one seems to be measuring the output. Back in 1965 when I graduated, I had to take the Graduate Record Exam in my major (Econ) even if I was not going to grad school. Everyone had to do the same thing in their major. If you didn’t score in the upper 70th percentile, you got an “attendance” diploma rather than a degree. Think of it as all the Econ majors in the US as a manhole cover. In the center is a juice glass, which represents those Econ majors who are going to grad school and are taking the GRE in Econ. We had to score in the top 70th percentile of “the juice glass” to get a degree. My class had 23 Econ majors and the worst score on the GRE was the 90th percentile and 18 of us went on to grad school.
I wonder how many universities have the stones to do the same measure of their programs?
First, they need to weed the number of universities/colleges down by about 40-50%.
Then we can talk about admissions requirements.
College graduates today couldn’t pass most high school requirements from 120 years ago.
The great thing about standards is that there are so many to pick from.
“.... Opponents of testing claim that the tests are unfair to minority students and help perpetuate the socioeconomic supremacy of affluent whites, ...”
Yet Asians and Africans who come here do fine on those tests! Perhaps it more to do with applying oneself then skin color.
<sarc></sarc>A student should be able to easily pass a literacy test.
The problem with standardized testing and even SATs is that they’ve gone woke.
Many years ago, probably 20 now that I think about it, my oldest was taking practice tests from one of these test prep books. She did about 3-4 of the and kept getting about the same score, a very good one at that.
Suddenly she comes to me and says, *They don’t want the correct answer. They want the POLITICALLY CORRECT answer! I’m taking another test (practice).*
She boosted her score by 100 points, consistently. By the time she got done taking the final SAT, IIRC her score was in the very low 1500’s, or upper 1400’s.
“...He is dean, emeritus, at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism ...”
No need to read further after reading the above. This clown is in the “math is hard” class of clowns.
I know the theory is that high school grades are the best predictor of college success, but how can you compare a student from an exclusive, accomplished school to one from a mill that passes people through to just get rid of them? Standardized tests are a necessity as the only way to directly compare candidates for admission.
Like anything for the majority of the bell curve, a properly created and administered standardized test is fine...
However, when you get outside the majority of the curve things like this fall down.
If I take a child who has dyslexia, or language processing issues, or some other similar issue, and I hand them a standardized test and give them 2 hours or whatever to do it, they are likely going to fail it miserably, or likely get a score far lower than their actual logical abilities.
The left can't look at the sewer they've turned public schools into. Got to blame the test. Then they find a student who, by some miracle, was able to halfway learn the material and put him into an Ivy League school to be dragged through to get a grievance studies degree rather than going to a mid-tier state college and earn a STEM degree that will get him a good job.