Princeton University announced this week that it will be reinstating the requirement for undergraduate applicants to submit standardized test scores in the 2027–28 admissions cycle. It is only the latest reversal for an ill-conceived and poorly supported movement to achieve greater equity and diversity by eliminating standardized testing in higher education.
Years ago, I wrote columns on the move by many academics to eliminate standardized testing to achieve greater diversity in colleges and universities. I have long been a critic of this movement given the overwhelming evidence that these tests allow an objective measure of academic merit and have great predictive value on the performance of students.
The University of California system was an early supporter of this ridiculous move. Notably, academics in the California system came to the same conclusion as some of us who denounced the move. These tests not only have the most significant predictive value for performance but also play an important role in the advancement of minority students. University of California President Janet Napolitano, however, overrode those conclusions.
Napolitano responded to such criticism with a Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019. Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing. The task force did find that 59 percent of high school graduates were Latino, African-American or Native American but only 37 percent were admitted as UC freshman students. The Task Force did not find standardized testing to be unreliable or call for its abandonment, however.
Instead, its final report concluded that “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.”
Not only that, it found: “Further, the amount of variance in student outcomes explained by test scores has increased since 2007 … Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.” In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college.
That clearly was not the result Napolitano or some others wanted. So, she simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions. The system would go to a “test-blind” system until it developed its own test.
Ending standardized testing had an obvious secondary purpose in frustrating new legal challenges on the use of race in college admissions. Last November, Californians rejected a resolution to restore affirmative action in college admissions.
MIT, Penn, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, and other schools ultimately reverted to standardized testing. The fact that these schools even joined this movement shows how faculties and administrators jettisoned educational standards for popular causes.
While originally rationalized due to COVID, the move was widely heralded as a victory for equity and diversity. Notably, the policy outlasted COVID as many academics rejected standardized testing as racist. There have even been calls for random selection of students to achieve greater racial diversity.
In the case of Princeton, the faculty took years to give itself sufficient cover to return to standardized testing by studying the obvious. The announcement comes after a five-year review of data, showing that students who submitted test scores generally performed better academically at Princeton than those who did not.
Just as with earlier studies, a new working paper published on the National Bureau of Economic Research website finds that standardized test scores are stronger predictors of college performance than high school GPA, even after controlling for race, gender, and socioeconomic status.
GPA scores are notoriously unreliable due to grade inflation and varying standards across different schools. In San Francisco, “grading for equity” is a goal in public schools. The slipping standards recently became evident when Harvard had to create a course to teach basic high school math to its students.
Columbia remains the last Ivy League holdout in dispensing with mandatory standardized testing.
What a bunch of racists. Selecting people based on their race and not their academic performance is the very definition of racism. Diversity is our downfall, not a strength.
Since AA and other race based garbage had been used for admissions, no one was able to explain to me how things like Mathematics change with ethnicity .. does not 1+1=2 in every country ????
I’ve been teaching in the US almost 25 years. Here there is a misconception that an A grade equals education. A child in the US gets an A grade for an assignment. Parents are happy and reward the child. The child then dumps everything about the assignment from their brain. The child remembers nothing year to year and has to be taught the basics again every year because there is no retention of information.
I wouldn’t have a problem with this except for the fact that colleges spend the first two years as a repeat of high school. If you’re going to force everyone, regardless of score, to take English 101, then why bother with testing?
Interesting that none of the usual reptiles didn’t dump their ignorant comments on this subject. That proves that the super majority commenting here have no college education.
Just the crowd Turley appeals to.
As a high school teacher of seniors for 25 years, I can attest to the massive grade inflation that takes place making high school GPA totally unreliable for admissions. I teach at an optional school. 95% African American. We offer AP, dual enrollment, dual credit, honors, and standard classes.
In short we have such a wide range of students you end up basing grades off many factors besides how students actually did on an assignment. Our school system puts a lot of pressure on teachers to ensure students do not fail. If I have above the number of failures the school system deems appropriate I am subjected to after school meetings, extra drop in observations, in some cases having cameras placed in your classroom. Obviously no one wants do endure these steps.
This leads to curving grades of those failing or giving them full credit even if they half way did an assignment. The thought process turns into it’s just a D. Then the other problem comes. If I gave a student who turned in half the assignments and failed every test a D, what do I do with the student who tried much harder but got a D. I bump them to a higher d or a C. What about the C student? The B student? We end up with what looks like a model student. Honors graduate, great attendance, participated in clubs, top 10 in the class, 16 on the ACT. That student could get away with not submitting an ACT score and earn a scholarship. Then struggle to make it through a semester at a top university. It happens in all white schools as well. It’s not a race issue. The standardized test play an important role in helping select those who can achieve at the highest levels.
If this wasn’t about race you would not have started off with the 95% African American comment. It is always about race.
so
Race and queerness is all that matters
“….none of the usual reptiles didn’t dump their ignorant comments on this subject.” That was hilarious, in a pathetic way. We were so very impressed by your illusory intellectual superiority.
I have 3 degrees
What an inexplicably idiotic thing to say.
That would be YOU dumping YOUR ignorant comment
I’m terrible on standardized test. One reason is I’ve never had the money to buy prep classes. Do prep classes work? When I was going through my first graduate school program I had to take the GRE. I did not do well at all. My University offered a weekend GRE prep class: 7 hours on Saturday and 7 hours on Sunday, for a total of 14 hours. The only reason I was able to attend it is because the cost was extremely nominal. The amount of information I learned in that weekend was unbelievable. Things I could have never learned on my own without the tutoring. My score from a one weekend prep class totaling 14 hours increased my GRE score by an incredible 25%. 25%!!!…. That’s when I knew how important these classes were and how they could affect admissions. People that are of limited wealth have to work usually they don’t have time to study full time for these tests, they have limited time for prep classes even if they could afford them. So I do think standardized tests to a certain degree or not valid because of this very reason it short circuits people that have the brain power to do it but can’t afford it because of the cost and expenses involved.
I ask, why were you not sufficiently prepared in high school for successfully taking a college entrance exam? A college entrance exam tests what you should have been taught, and learned, in high school. A poor score on a college entrance exam is basically a confirmation of how inadequate was your high school “education”. I suspect you were a product of government schools.
Agree to some extent. My son goes to an elite school and even with test prep cannot crack 1000. His GPA almost 4.0 with AP’s in the mix. Should he get into an IVY, test optional? Absolutely not. He is a better than average student but these tests are predictive indicators of success in college. He’ll end up where he needs to be. To be clear, so many schools inflate grades. It’s meaningless to some degree at this point. These tests set the benchmark more accurately than GPA’s.
But they aren’t gonna get those resources in college either. So the same poor performance will result
Oh my heart breaks for poor little you.
Your poor writing skills in your comment are indicative of how poor a student you are. It is filled with run-on sentences, poor punctuation and faulty word use. You’ve negated the validity of your argument.
Try not to use contractions, don’t be lazy.
I agree that standardized tests are legitimate way to rate people on an objective scale✅. The problem with standardized test is you can hire “Coaches/Tutors/Admissions Advisors” to prepare you for the test. If you have average academic skills but also have the time money, wealth and will put in effort to be tutored like this ⬆️, then you can gain a tremendous advantage. My nieces Hired Rick Ross (of the infamous “Varsity Blues” admissions scam) 20 years ago to prep them for the SAT, admissions application essays and what, when, where and which extracurricular “volunteer work” they should be doing to gain an edge in the process. He also offered guaranteed admission to get each of them into an Elite school where he pulled his scam, through what he called a “side door”. For $150K each. They didn’t bite on that scam. That kind of coaching makes the difference between top 10% and “mean” standardized test scores. This is exactly how someone like Kim Kardashian was able to pass the California Baby Bar Exam, she had numerous personal coaches teaching her the six subjects on the baby bar exam. That exam is not easy, 80% fail it. Kim failed it three times prior, but she ended up passing it with personal coaching. And there’s no doubt in my mind she will end up passing the California Bar Exam (which she somehow took in a private setting, not with the public, which I’ve never heard of before, but she clearly had strings pulled in her bar exam testing location/environment) with the same type of coaching. There’s also no doubt in my mind she did not put in the type of hours needed for her legal education program, which was basically an apprenticeship in a law office where she should have been in there for 40 hours a week 50 weeks a year. There’s no way she could have done that in a law office a thousand miles from her home.
*. Whatever is done do it well and with honesty. I still have faith in good will and man’s ability to innovate even in the bottom half.
Peas to all and may we see whirled peas, too.
PS. Why isn’t the left celebrating the ceasefire and return of prisoners?
Right?? their “King Nazi” freed the jews…..
I would be interested in an good analysis of the experience by colleges with the academic results when accepting students without the benefit of standardized tests. Famously, the University of California did a study that revealed that standardized tests were effective in differentiating the suitability of students for college work. And of course the University of California rejected their own study and eliminated the use of standardized testing. This has been a great natural experiment that should inform the public.
I’m sure it’s documented.
*. Achievement tests are necessary but they may say as much about the instructors as they do about the pupils tested .
The candle needs burning at both ends. The faculties of colleges are now DEI, CRT and ANTIFA.
Give them better pupils? Give the pupils better instructors while you’re at it.
40+ years ago when I was in college we had an English professor that was so liberal ( and this was a private university) that I quickly figured out that you had to tie all of your critiques of novels to Nazis… The fruitcake used to carry a picture of Tim Curry in drag from the rocky horror picture show in his briefcase.
First, a Poem, and then some prose! Right on topic! The roots of non-phonic teaching methods!
Prose and Cons???
A Poem by Floyd
Alas, for the poor pedagogue!
Who stumbles around in a fog!
He learned by “Look-Say” –
To read half the way –
Here is his true epilogue:
“A Pony! A Pony! My Kingdom for a Pony!”
Makes Richard the Third seem a child!
And, “The old gray Zebra, she ain’t what she used to be!”
Seems off-color a bit, to be mild.
“Eat like a gelding! Get off your high bronco!”
“Slow down now, and just hold your fillies!”
“Don’t put the cart before the mustang!”
Makes pedagogues all look like sillies!
The Source of all this:
William Scott Gray, an educator and massively influential literacy advocate, was the author of the stories (but Zerna Sharp reads like the boss and is given creator credit for Dick and Jane). Gray was a firm supporter of the Look-and-Say method of reading, (yes, the debate was alive and well in the 1930’s) where emphasis is placed on learning whole words by sight before learning basic phonic skills. Dick and Jane are Look-and-Say books.
Eleanor B. Campbell was the first illustrator of the series. Her watercolors captured children in activities they took part in every day, actions and activities that were familiar to the young reader. This illustration tactic was meant to support learning to read by allowing children to guess words based on the familiar activities in the pictures. A popular theory of the day promoted by Edmund Huey’s 1908 book The Psychology and Pedagogy of Reading suggested that understanding content and intention was more important than accurately reading a word.
“Even if the child substitutes words of his own for some that are on the page, provided that those express the meaning, it is an encouraging sign that the reading has been real, and recognition of details will come as it is needed. Reading, to be truthful, must be free of what is on the page.” Edward Huey, 1908
This thinking argued that if a page had the word “horse” and the child guessed “pony” they were successfully reading. Unfortunately, for this method, pictures eventually are no longer a part !of books. How is one supposed to guess content on the page when there isn’t a picture of a horse to help us incorrectly guess the word pony?
When the series went through revisions in the 1960s, the books introduced more phonics instruction, likely in response to Rudolf Flesch’s Why Johnny Can’t Read (more on this coming soon!) and because of researchers and reading specialists like Jeanne Chall, whose commitment to studying reading science introduced phonics back into the classroom curriculum. In 1965 Dick and Jane became the first primary Reader series to introduce a Black family to readers.
Full article at this link:
https://librarystax.substack.com/p/see-jane-run-see-dick-run-run-run