Dartmouth resumes standardised tests mandate in admissions

Dartmouth College is resuming its use of standardised tests in admissions, saying it has concluded that its test-optional approach since the pandemic has weakened rather than improved its ability to craft classes of diverse and highly qualified students.

The Ivy League institution said its move reflected evidence that test-optional policies discourage low-income and minority students from even applying, and that the combination of standardised test scores and high school grades had been shown to be a highly effective means of finding the applicants most likely to succeed in college.

“A standardised test score doesn’t – and shouldn’t – dictate our admissions decisions, but it should inform those decisions,” said Sian Leah Beilock, Dartmouth’s president since last summer, in announcing resumption of the testing requirement for its class of 2029.

The two main standardised college admissions tests – the SAT and the ACT – lost large shares of their US market in recent years amid concerns that their products reinforced advantages of wealth in higher education, through mechanisms that include test questions with socioeconomic biases and the proliferation of students paying for test preparation classes and repeated test opportunities.

The Covid lockdowns further accelerated the abandonment of the SAT and the ACT to the point where it is the clear norm. About 90 per cent of all four-year US institutions don’t require their applicants to submit an ACT or SAT test score, with most applicants at many leading institutions now skipping them, according to FairTest, an advocacy group that opposes such tests.

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 The Dartmouth decision, however, reflects a sense that higher education might be bouncing back in the other direction, as some institutions make the argument that a balanced use of SAT and ACT scores can have beneficial effects on racial equity. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Georgetown University, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Georgia are among those that have resumed requiring standardised tests.

In explaining its decision, Dartmouth cited a growing body of research – notably from Harvard University’s Opportunity Insights team led by Raj Chetty, a celebrated professor of economics – showing that SAT and ACT scores are strong predictors of long-term student outcomes in college.

To that set of findings, Dartmouth added a study from its own team of researchers that found “high school grades paired with standardised testing are the most reliable indicators for success in Dartmouth’s course of study”. Making the standardised tests optional in 2020, the Dartmouth research team said, had disproportionately reduced the college’s share of low-income students, in part by making such applicants feel that their scores were not worth submitting.

After telling its applicants this past admissions cycle that submitting standardised test submissions was encouraged, Dartmouth said, it set records on measures of low-income acceptances. “Contrary to what some have perceived,” Dartmouth said, “standardised testing allows us to admit a broader and more diverse range of students.”

FairTest is pushing back, suggesting that, although standardised tests might be useful in predicting college grades, there’s no proven need to for colleges to make tests mandatory. The culture surrounding such tests also put needless pressure on students, once they entered college, to see grades as the chief measure for success in a world where low-income and minority students tended to start out behind, said FairTest’s senior director of advocacy and advancement, Akil Bello.

Leaders of both the ACT and the College Board, which produces the SAT, said Dartmouth’s move reflected a growing recognition that their tests could be an important tool for institutions trying to build diverse student communities.

“Other admissions factors, such as grades, are not as predictive and can create unfair advantages for better resourced students,” said Priscilla Rodriguez, the senior vice-president of college readiness assessments at the College Board. “Entirely removing objective benchmarks,” said Janet Godwin, the ACT’s chief executive, “risks tilting the admissions process even more toward students from wealthy families, by elevating the importance of credentials like extracurricular activities, volunteering and letters of recommendation.”

US higher education’s mix of test-optional policies and terminology also needed to be addressed, Ms Godwin said, because it was causing unnecessary confusion and stress for applicants.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com