During the COVID-19 pandemic scores of colleges began shifting to test-optional admissions—and stayed that way, even after pandemic restrictions no longer affected students' ability to take college entrance exams like the SAT and ACT. As of March 2024, the majority of U.S. colleges are test-optional, and more than 80 will refuse to consider student test scores at all.
However, there has recently been a resurgence for standardized tests. New studies showed that the tests were a better predictor of student achievement than their high school GPA, disproving the longstanding theory that standardized tests are biased and don't accurately capture student ability. Over the past few months, elite college trendsetters like Yale University, Dartmouth College, and Brown University have begun requiring applicants to submit standardized test scores again.
This week, even more evidence arrived indicating that standardized test scores are much more useful than other tools when it comes to predicting later student success. The University of Texas (U.T.) at Austin, in a press release announcing the school's return to requiring test scores in admissions, revealed startling data showing a massive achievement gap between students who submitted their test scores and those who didn't.
"University's own data further revealed that on average, students who submitted standardized scores performed significantly better on those exams and in their first semester of college, relative to those who did not take the test or chose not to have their scores considered as part of a holistic review," the press release reads. "The University has also demonstrated that knowledge of standardized test scores contributes to higher graduation rates."
According to the press release, students who submitted their SAT score had a median score of 1420, while those who didn't scored just 1160—a more than 250-point gap amounting to more than a standard deviation. Of the students who were admitted and enrolled in U.T. Austin, those who submitted their scores were estimated to have earned a first semester GPA .86 grade points higher than those who didn't, when "controlling for a wide range of factors, including high school class rank and GPA."
Students who sent in scores were also estimated to be 55 percent less likely to have a first-semester GPA less than 2.0 than students who didn't submit test scores.
While U.T. Austin is just one school, the stark divide in the performance of students who did and didn't share their test scores with the college provides a striking example of just how much information colleges lose when they don't have an applicant's scores.
"Our goals are to attract the best and brightest students and to make sure every student is successful once they are here," President Jay Hartzell said in the press release. "Standardized testing is a valuable tool for deciding who is admitted and making sure those students are placed in majors that are the best fit. Also, with an abundance of high school GPAs surrounding 4.0…an SAT or ACT score is a proven differentiator that is in each student's and the University's best interest."
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