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Comment by anon291 | Hacker News Reader

It's almost as if those of us who used critical reasoning before the decision was made to scrap these tests were right. A lot of introspection needs to be done to determine why these decisions were made. At the time of the decision, the admissions committees claimed the exact opposite was true, that the tests are poor predictors and disadvantaged already-disadvantaged students. Now they're claiming the opposite. Based on what data? Why did we allow the admissions committees of so-called 'elite' institutions to be so easily swayed? Are these institutions really worthy of their 'elite' status? It would seem to be called into question if they can't answer a question as straightforwards as this.

Especially institutions like MIT... one would expect that they have a solid understanding of data analysis.

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I think the groups championing stuff like this had a lot of clout a few years ago. Unfortunately for them, concrete positive results never materialized. In the meantime, the Supreme Court ruled negatively on race-based admissions and DEI offices are facing public backlash. If there really were any ideas with pursuing, those groups squandered their chance.

> I think the groups championing stuff like this had a lot of clout a few years ago.

Alternative explanation: the pandemic happened. "When the coronavirus pandemic scrambled testing, Yale and many other colleges dropped requirements that applicants submit standardized tests such as the SAT or ACT."

That is indeed a possibility. However that was not the popular narrative. I'd be interested to see if that was the reason given and how often

> However that was not the popular narrative. I'd be interested to see if that was the reason given and how often

"For nearly four years Yale’s undergraduate admissions process has been test-optional. The experience, originally necessitated by the pandemic..." https://admissions.yale.edu/test-flexible

"I am writing to announce that, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, our office will be suspending our usual SAT/ACT testing requirement for the coming application cycle." https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/we-are-suspending-our-...

"When Dartmouth suspended its standardized testing requirement for undergraduate applicants in June 2020, it was a pragmatic pause taken by most colleges and universities in response to an unprecedented global pandemic." https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/apply/update-testing-policy

I thought the popular narrative was that this was primarily driven by the pandemic? The debate about the value of standardized test scores has been raging for decades and up until the pandemic most elite colleges and universities still required them. (Upon reflection, there was a prior movement at some schools to boost declining enrollment by making tests optional, but that seemed more driven by profit-seeking than morality.)

The primary explanation I have heard both in the news and from friends in admissions departments for so many elite schools going test-optional at the same time was for the pandemic, and most of the ones I am aware of explicitly called it a temporary measure as Yale did.

Now I could buy that the testing debate may have played a role in why some schools have been dragging their feet to return to requiring tests post-pandemic because anti-test folks are exploiting this opportunity. But having worked in academia I also would not discount the immense inertia in university admissions playing an equally large role.

I'm sorry... no. The pandemic also messed with ... grading. Why is a one day exam considered enough of a danger to merit ignoring it, while mandating continued schooling? Many disadvantaged students obviously were going to be more disadvantaged with online schooling. We could have easily found ways to administer tests safely (outdoors, fewer people in larger, well-ventilated buildings, etc). No... no attempts were made to even encourage that, realizing that making this opportunity available would mean more disadvantaged kids able to attend these schools.

> We could have easily

Easily, yes, that's the stereotypical HN comment. Everything is easy. I could do it in a weekend...

> outdoors

That's much easier said than done in many parts of the country.

> realizing that making this opportunity available would mean more disadvantaged kids able to attend these schools.

Sooooo... why are they stopping then?

Have you considered the possibility that maybe during a global pandemic, with all kinds of terrible crap happening, administering the SAT wasn't a very high social priority, and it was easier for everyone just to skip it?

I’m out of the loop on the Supreme Court decision, could you briefly fill me in?

Here is the ruling: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf

A lot of introspection needs to be done to determine why these decisions were made.

These decisions were purely political and social in nature, and it will happen again as soon as there is another opportunity. University administrators, under political and a little bit of social pressure, ignored science and data in pursuit of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The bulk of Ivy League schools have determined that some groups of people cannot make it without help, and it is up to those universities to correct this wrong by reducing as many roadblocks and responsibilities as possible.

I doubt there will be any introspection because many of the people who made these disastrous decisions are still in power and will likely be so for some time.

> Especially institutions like MIT

MIT dropped the standardized test requirement only during Covid (in 2020 and 2021). One could argue that in those time keeping the requirement would be tantamount to endangering people. Maybe they made that argument, maybe not, but the fact is that they were the first to reinstate the requirement, so not clear why you decided to pick on them.

chances are excellent the decision to abandon standardized testing came directly from the colleges bean counters instead of its laureates.

running a college is very lucrative, with most institutions being nothing more than taxpayer subsidized sports team franchises. Yale isnt one of these, so its only alternative to boost revenue is to relax admissions criteria.

chances are also great that cloistered elites found this idea so dyspeptic as to demand the bar be raised oncemore. Yale is also a critical litmus for the social signaling of americas capital class.

Yale definitely is that. Elon Musk put it bluntly in https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1526975113597489154?lang...

Yale is the epicenter of the woke mind virus attempting to destroy civilization.

Paul Graham's response to this was:

Bizarre as that last sentence sounds, I have to say that when I asked someone with a lot of experience in freedom of speech issues which universities to avoid, Yale was the first he mentioned.

When my son was applying to colleges, Yale and Stanford were at the top of his list of schools not to consider because he didn't like DEI.

Maybe someone is finally waking up to the fact that this is becoming a long-term reputation problem for the university?

Now consider that the Supreme Court Justices are basically all from Harvard / Yale.

> A lot of introspection needs to be done to determine why these decisions were made.

Not really. It started with the pandemic, which messed up everything, including testing.

It didn't start with the pandemic, it just continued during it.

This article from the Washington Post, in October 2019 (before the pandemic started) reported that as of then, 40% of accredited schools had already dropped this requirement.

>>> Nearly 50 accredited colleges and universities that award bachelor’s degrees announced from September 2018 to September 2019 that they were dropping the admissions requirement for an SAT or ACT score, FairTest said. That brings the number of accredited schools to have done so to 1,050 — about 40 percent of the total, the nonprofit said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/18/record-n...

The article is about Yale, and it did start for Yale with the pandemic.

I think we have a both/and situation - there was a strong current to remove SAT/ACT score consideration already in play and the pandemic was enough to force it through at Yale and others.

What schools did not drop the requirement during the pandemic would be more interesting.

> What schools did not drop the requirement during the pandemic would be more interesting.

It might be interesting... if you named any.

It's hard to find (as in a one second google search didn't find it, but man found a lot of lists of SAT/ACT-free admissions) but I did find this:

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-lis...

At least one on there (MIT) we know dropped and brought it back, so it's clearly not a list of those that always required it.

We didn't allow them to do anything. They're just not accountable to us.

If you've been following Harvard's anti-Semitism drama over the last 4 months, it appears they're not really accountable to anybody. Neither US Congress nor their wealthiest donors have been able to force action from them.

But Harvard's president was forced to resign?

Due to a citation scandal, that wasn’t as big a deal as it was presented in context.

The wrong reason to go…

A better reason to go was that her research was crap based on bad statistics.

Things like the citation scandal are a signal for the kind of problem that lead to that.

It's not at all obvious to me that (or why) Yale or Harvard ought to be accountable to us. They're private universities and, as far as I know, they appear to be following the laws that they're subject to. (Following the law is a form of accountability, but a very weak form.)

If they want to suddenly condition admissions on a hash function of the applicant's name, I think that would be absurd, but I don't think I ought to have any say in that matter.

Who is "we"? We are generally not in a position to allow or disallow anything. Most of those elite institutions are private non-profit corporations. They can do pretty much whatever they want (within certain legal bounds) and are accountable only to their own Boards.

"We" are the people who continue to associate these schools with academic excellence. Yes, I agree they can do what they want. My local evangelical bible school can also do what they want but no one associates them with academic excellence.

It's a bit more nuanced than what you're describing. I suggest listening to this (or reading the transcript): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/podcasts/the-daily/the-wa...

Doesn't seem very nuanced to me. The transcript directly supports anon291's claim.

Transcript: "So this in-depth study looking at college admissions that was released last summer ended up finding that the richest applicants have huge advantages in college admissions, and a lot of people have assumed that the SAT must be one of the advantages that richer applicants have."

Then they controlled for the obvious confounders, and the assumption was wrong. (Big surprise: Wealthy people attend better schools.)

I, too, am curious why schools changed their admissions policies before studying the matter closely.

>>I, too, am curious why schools changed their admissions policies before studying the matter closely.

Probably for the same reason Oregon decided to decriminalize most drugs thinking it would reduce usage and harm (it didn't).

I understand your good intentions, but a poor response is one that says "go spend time listening to this podcast." That's someone else's article-length response. If you think that podcast/article made interesting points, briefly summarize them in your comment and provide the link for those who want to dig in a bit more.

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