After nearly disappearing due to COVID, standardized tests are coming back. Just this morning, Yale announced that it is requiring standardized tests. This follows a recent similar announcement from Dartmouth. Other prominent colleges that reinstated tests last year include MIT, Georgetown, Purdue, Georgia Tech, and the University of Florida. You should expect more to follow.

Yale and Dartmouth are reinstating tests for the very best of reasons: Their research shows that test scores identify promising students from poor performing schools that likely would have been overlooked. The key is looking at test scores in the context of the student’s high school. Stated simply, a 1400 SAT score says a great deal if the high school average is 900. It indicates that the student is likely to thrive at an intellectually demanding college, despite not being challenged in high school.

The key takeaway for students is something that I have said before: You should take standardized tests, because they can only help you.

The remainder of this post will look at two common refrains used against standardized testing, and how the research at MIT, Dartmouth and Yale showed these to be false for their applicants.

“Test Scores Favor the Wealthy”

It’s true that, on average, test scores increase with income. And this fact is repeatedly trotted out by those who are against testing. Their conclusion is that that standardized tests only perpetuate income inequality.

But selective colleges have long looked at students’ accomplishments in the context of the opportunities available to them. Student “A”, from a wealthy family attending a high-performing high school, is expected to have a rich set of extracurriculars, whereas it’s fine for a student “B” from a poor family to have few extracurriculars because he is busy with a job to help support his family.  

The colleges use the same approach with standardized tests. They are not comparing a 1500 test score of student A with a 1400 test score of student B and saying let’s admit A and reject B. Instead, they are looking at student B’s score relative to the 900 average in his school, and identifying him as someone who can likely thrive at their college despite not being challenged in high school.

Here is what MIT, Dartmouth, and Yale have said about how test scores can increase, rather than decrease, opportunity:

• MIT: “Research conducted by the admissions office shows that the standardized tests are an important factor in assessing the academic preparation of applicants from all backgrounds”, according to Dean of Admissions and Student Financial Services Stuart Schmill. He says the standardized exams are most helpful for assisting the admissions office in identifying socioeconomically disadvantaged students who are well-prepared for MIT’s challenging education, but who don’t have the opportunity to take advanced coursework, participate in expensive enrichment programs, or otherwise enhance their college applications.
• Dartmouth: They also found that test scores represent an especially valuable tool to identify high-achieving applicants from low and middle-income backgrounds; who are first-generation college-bound; as well as students from urban and rural backgrounds. It is also an important tool as we meet applicants from under-resourced or less familiar high schools across the increasingly wide geography of our applicant pool. That is, contrary to what some have perceived, standardized testing allows us to admit a broader and more diverse range of students.
• Yale: For students attending high schools with fewer resources, applications without scores can inadvertently leave admissions officers with scant evidence of their readiness for Yale. When students attending these high schools include a score with their application — even a score below Yale’s median range — they give the committee greater confidence that they are likely to achieve academic success in college. Our research strongly suggests that requiring scores of all applicants serves to benefit and not disadvantage students from under-resourced backgrounds.

“Test Scores Don’t Predict Success”

Another common complaint by the anti-test crowd is that test scores don’t predict success in college. While I am in favor of standardized testing, I agree that test scores don’t predict college success for every student. Some talented students freeze up during tests, or they do excellent work but at a slower pace. I am glad that there are colleges like Bates and Bowdoin that were test-optional long before COVID, and will likely remain so even as more colleges bring back test requirements.

However, a key reason that MIT, Dartmouth and Yale are again requiring tests is that they found it does help predict college success at their colleges.

• MIT: Our research has shown that, in most cases, we cannot reliably predict students will do well at MIT unless we consider standardized test results alongside grades, coursework, and other factors. These findings are statistically robust and stable over time, and hold when you control for socioeconomic factors and look across demographic groups. And the math component of the testing turns out to be most important.
• Dartmouth: A new research study … conducted by Dartmouth economists Elizabeth Cascio, Bruce Sacerdote and Doug Staiger and educational sociologist Michele Tine confirms that standardized testing—when assessed using the local norms at a student’s high school—is a valuable element of Dartmouth’s undergraduate application. Their illuminating study found that high school grades paired with standardized testing are the most reliable indicators for success in Dartmouth’s course of study.
• Yale: we found that test scores have continued to predict academic performance in Yale College. Simply put, students with higher scores have been more likely to have higher Yale GPAs, and test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s performance in Yale courses in every model we have constructed.