alt Hacker NewsThe likely 'real' reason is hidden in one paragraph within the article and has nothing to do with the implication of the eye-catching title: "Both Garcia and Ranade have joined more than 1,300 UC faculty in signing a petition calling for the reinstatement of ACT and SAT standardized testing scores for STEM admissions in the UC system. The petition and its accompanying open letter detail similar concerns with students’ mathematical preparation."
Around COVID times many top universities experimented with removing test requirements from admissions, under an argument largely related to equity. It's been a failure everywhere, with many, if not most, universities already reversing it. As Yale put it, "Yale’s research from before and after the pandemic has consistently demonstrated that, among all application components, test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future Yale grades. This is true even after controlling for family income and other demographic variables, and it is true for subject-based exams such as AP and IB, in addition to the ACT and SAT." [1]
That link is for an archive because that page has been removed. That's because they briefly experimented with a new 'test flexible' strategy where they allowed students to submit test scores or not, but then scrapped that altogether and went back to simply requiring test scores.
[1] - https://archive.is/8zxfo
Replies
If the removal of standardized testing in 2021 was the real reason, then why is there a sudden spike of failure rates happening right now?
> top universities experimented with removing test requirements from admissions
What could go wrong...
I'm not American so maybe I am missing some context. But how did admissions work without test scores?
Memorize trivia and formulas, regurgitate trivia and formulas. This summarizes my experience with our system of education. Yale saying test scores predict performance reads to me as, “students’ history of being able to regurgitate trivia and formulas in high school is the lead predictor of their ability to do so here.”
Berkeley chancellor told students to vote for 2020 California Proposition 16, which would've repeated 1996 Proposition 209 that banned race-based admission in public universities. Prop 16 failed. Subsequently, Cal started ignoring SAT/ACT scores. I have to think this was their alternative way of taking fewer Asian students, who average highest on that. Soon after I got an email from the same chancellor praising the change for bringing more racial diversity. The email included before and after numbers where % Asian decreased and all others increased.