MIT suspending SAT/ACT requirement for next application cycle

&gt; we do expect to return to requiring the SAT&#x2F;ACT once it is possible for everyone to take them safely<p>Fine with this being temporary. Much less fine with the schools who have completely abandoned the SAT&#x2F;ACT in the name of equality while still considering things like personal essays and extracurriculars, which are way more liable to be gamed by the wealthy than the SAT.

I&#x27;d like to point out that there&#x27;s an egalitarian approach to college admissions that I found interesting. Every single time I&#x27;ve brought it up with people, no matter their politics, they got angry about it, but I think it would be interesting to see it implemented and then compare the outcomes.<p>A lottery system of admissions, with a guarantee of admission to at least some universities. It&#x27;s described here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.currentaffairs.org&#x2F;2018&#x2F;03&#x2F;admit-everybody&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.currentaffairs.org&#x2F;2018&#x2F;03&#x2F;admit-everybody&#x2F;</a>

This will definitely help make it easier for admissions to discriminate against Asian students.

Anecdotal evidence, but I did well on the SAT and spent very little money. I bought a few books, but easily could have pirated them online (like I did for all of my AP tests previously).<p>I think the SAT is likely more egalitarian than extracurriculars, although I cannot comment on its effectiveness as an indicator for college performance.<p>Someone who has to work after high school to support their family would not have the time or energy to play sports, do choir, run clubs, etc. But they could go to the library, pirate some books, print out the pages and practice 20 minutes a day starting 10-12 months ahead of time. It would be more difficult, of course, but I still think studying for a test is easier and cheaper than having extensive extracurriculars.<p>Anecdotally, I&#x27;ve also always heard SAT test prep is a waste of money.

Did SAT&#x2F;ACT scores ever make a difference in applications here? I know they probably cut off around 1300-1400 (as do plenty of schools), but my understanding was that MIT wanted you to be doing tons of extracurriculars and other stuff that wasn&#x27;t represented by standardized tests anyway.

Well that&#x27;s one way to hide your discrimination against Asian kids.

Like a lot of things, the pandemic will be used as cover to stop (or change) stuff everyone hates, but otherwise don&#x27;t have the courage to discontinue otherwise.<p>--<p>Is anyone using lotteries as part of admissions?<p>My interest in lotteries comes thru 1) warming up to the notion of sortition, 2) tired of the food fight over affirmative action, and 3) rejection of ever increasing bureaucracy and credentialing.<p>As a mental model, I&#x27;m starting to think of lotteries as an optimization technique.<p>--<p>I briefly worked on some student facing stuff in higher ed. The course registration stuff is insane. There&#x27;s got to be more fair, easier to administrate systems. Something like an auction. Release some fraction of courses every time interval. Figure out some rational way to prioritize bids. Like add weight for seniority, students in program, declared major. Or whatever. Then administrators can add or remove courses, sections, labs, whatever as needed.<p>--<p>Now that our university monopolies have been privatized, why hasn&#x27;t Freedom Markets™ logic prevailed? Raise supply to meet demand.<p>Higher ed loves government pork. But are completely unaccountable.<p>If we are states are no longer willing to adjudicate bottom up, they must now impose some kind of top down pressure.<p>The most simple idea I can think of is raid (radical cashectomies) the endowments. Use it or lose. Compel places like MIT and Harvard to spend down their hoard. Increase slots. Add campuses. Adopt other universities and invest in them, like scholastic version of sport farm teams.<p>Let Freedom Markets™ sing!

One question on my mind (as someone who has a master&#x27;s degree and engineering degree and has never taken the ACT&#x2F;SAT) is how kids will go about showing pure intellectual merit?<p>Like let&#x27;s say you grow up ok but you can&#x27;t really afford to join the ski club or for a tutor and maybe you work in the evenings but you crush the SAT&#x2F;ACT because you&#x27;re incredibly intelligent. How will universities like MIT take that into account? If we&#x27;re talking about merit - boy that sure speaks of merit to me compared to a laundry list of clubs, activities, and organizations that the kids with hyper-dedicated parents or lots of money have on their applications.<p>I&#x27;ll also say, I didn&#x27;t take either of these tests and came from a family where to this day I&#x27;m still the only one to attend college, but if I had taken the SAT or ACT and scored remarkably well - I think that would have opened doors I didn&#x27;t even know exist. High school counselor ideally would have noticed a high score and helped with applications.<p>I don&#x27;t like these tests but I have to imagine a subset of the population uses them to great effect. Like many things, it seems, I bet that removal of these tests will result in bifurcation in the education system, or will wind up hurting poorer students (while making the middle extremely competitive).<p>Anyway. There are so many problems with the university system, starting with using universities to train workers, that it&#x27;s difficult to feel emotion anymore around the issue because it&#x27;s so overwhelming.<p>-edit-<p>For what it&#x27;s worth I don&#x27;t know if the SAT&#x2F;ACT are a good show of intellect. And these tests can be effectively gamed - not just illegally as we saw with the recent scandal but with tutors and test prep.<p>-edit 2-<p>Many students who are intelligent but grow up poor have a difficult time in universities, especially when they don&#x27;t get to take the same classes as their peers did in high school. I know I&#x27;m probably an average student, but when I went to my calculus classes after being out of high school for around 5 years I could grasp how to do derivatives and their meaning, but couldn&#x27;t understand the log functions or trigonometry. So I&#x27;d do most of the homework and take the quizzes, then bomb the exams when these concepts came into play. I felt miserable and I didn&#x27;t know how to study or how to even really get help - I didn&#x27;t even have a concept of what I didn&#x27;t know. I just thought I was dumb. It took 3 tries but I eventually got enough help and practice (thanks Khan Academy and others) to make it through, graduate, and go on to do other things.<p>Fortunately I had training in resilience from the military. What about that kid who grows up crushes a standardized test and fails a class and then thinks that they&#x27;re stupid and they don&#x27;t know how to ask for help or can&#x27;t afford tutoring? Those kids maybe they fail out, or maybe they have mediocre grades so when they go to try and get a job they&#x27;re competing against 3.8s with tons of on-campus activities. Yet again perpetuating the cycle of getting dumped on. Needs lots of luck or persistence to break the cycle.

The 25th percentile student at MIT gets a 790 math SAT, it&#x27;s 730 for language. Difference between 790 and 800 is basically luck. It&#x27;s at the point where the test can only hurt you not help you.<p>There&#x27;s no upside, but if you don&#x27;t prepare, or happen to have a bad day, it can ruin your chances. For students applying to MIT-caliber schools it&#x27;s a hoop to jump through, not an opportunity to distinguish themselves.<p>I am honestly curious how the MIT admissions office is able to use the SAT to predict anything about student success, given a huge majority of the students got a nearly perfect score. It seems like there should be almost no signal.

So there will be no “standard” tests (with all their pros and cons) but there still will be “essays”, and “extracurricular clubs&#x2F;activities” preparing for which (and joining the clubs) are far more expensive.

So many university recruiters at that level just suggest a minimum application criteria after which a lottery is applied to select acceptable applicants. A truly randomized lottery would ensure no bias in student selection.<p>If you have, let’s say, 3000 open positions and 15,000 applications of which all are academically qualified does it really matter who they pick for admission? It’s not like there is going to be any real world performance difference between candidate 1200 and 12000 if they are valedictorians with 4.0 GPAs.

I recommend this episode of This American Life if you&#x27;re interested in hearing more about the current debate over the SATs and schools choosing not to use them: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thisamericanlife.org&#x2F;734&#x2F;the-campus-tour-has-been-cancelled" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thisamericanlife.org&#x2F;734&#x2F;the-campus-tour-has-bee...</a>

Am I the only one surprised it was still required? I&#x27;d gathered that many high- and top-tiered US uni&#x27;s had swapped to &quot;accepted, not required&quot; over a decade ago. Perhaps the momentum here swung back in light of conversations around the way this applies towards different races&#x2F;ethnicities?

MIT already has enough applicants with close to perfect SAT scores that they could fill their class multiple times over. So this is a bit of a meaningless differentiator and tbh might even negatively affect someone who e.g. has below average grades but tests well.

Help me reconcile this:<p>1. Asking for voter id is racist because it disproportionately effects black voters.<p>2. Making this move that disproportionately effects Asian students is not racist?

On the one hand, it is ridiculous that one of the main metrics used in admissions is a glorified IQ test. On the other hand, it is ridiculous that we don&#x27;t have a single commonly used standardized-exam that evaluates proficiency and expertise in the core curriculum.<p>I know America has a serious NIH syndrome, but the situation could be improved overnight if every single public school adopted the GCSE&#x2F;A levels or IB curriculum and exams.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;GCE_Advanced_Level_(United_Kingdom)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;GCE_Advanced_Level_(United_Kin...</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ibo.org&#x2F;about-the-ib&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ibo.org&#x2F;about-the-ib&#x2F;</a>

Seems like at the moment high-school students in the US have to do <i>two</i> sets of exams - their normal high-school graduation exams, and also the SAT or ACT. Is that right? Why don&#x27;t they use the results from one for the other? Use SAT for high-school graduation, or use high-school graduation results for university admission.

Most people have already mentioned that this change could result in discrimination, but I think it&#x27;s also extremely important to note that these high school students are <i>extremely</i> overworked.<p>If a student is a top-tier applicant that has good grades, plays a sport, participates in a club or two, volunteers, &amp; has a part-time job, they are easily working <i>a minimum</i> of 60+ hours per week. There is absolutely no way this can continue. I was pissed about this when I was in high school ~8 years ago, and it&#x27;s only gotten worse since.<p>EDIT: Downvoted because I&#x27;m advocating for teens to not have to spend <i>all</i> of their waking hours preparing for college &amp; instead get enough sleep or do something enjoyable?

&gt; Students who have not already taken the SAT&#x2F;ACT, and cannot find a forthcoming opportunity to do so safely are discouraged from taking the test, in order to protect their personal health, as well as the health of their family and community. We will not make any negative presumptions regarding academic preparation based solely on the absence of SAT&#x2F;ACT scores, but will instead make the best, most informed decision we can by rigorously assessing other academic aspects of their application (such as grades, coursework, and other examinations).<p>This is getting ridiculous.<p>Imagine if your kid puts in the hours and hours of studying and pulls off a 35 on their ACT -- at a school like MIT, that&#x27;s not enough (considered alone) to get in.<p>How are you and your kid going to feel when they give her spot to someone who didn&#x27;t even submit a standardized test score?