[retortio]

Ah, those pesky standardized tests.

Sure they're the hardest part of admissions to game and are a major part of establishing an even intellectual playing field for applicants, but it just looks so bad when we discard a much higher proportion of qualified Asian applicants than qualified applicants from other groups! We were even sued over this issue and the suit is going to appeal!

And we're trying so hard to increase the numbers of admitted applicants from other groups but their standardized testing scores just aren't up to snuff...

I know! Let's just get rid of the tests! Then we can enforce whatever arbitrary (and race based) standards we want without annoying complaints that we're discriminating against qualified applicants.

What's that? By enforcing artificial "race" quotas we're just further dividing people based on race? Nonsense, our humanities department tells us that reifying race and obsessing over it is the best way to achieve a post racial society!

[kory]

The problem is that standardized tests worsen the gap between the privileged and not. Test performance correlates strongly with how much prep you receive. Wealthy, white & asian students have the advantage there.

Not to mention that I am not convinced these tests strongly correlate with one’s ability to successfully complete an undergrad degree.

[retortio]

What's harder: gaining admission to a prestigious private high school that costs $50,000 a year or getting a few cheap SAT test books, watching some free YouTube videos and practicing for a few weeks?

The point is that the SAT can be practiced for (to a small extent), but the resources necessary to improve one's score are cheap and widely available. It's one of the most equitable aspects of college admissions we have.

[DuskStar]

> Not to mention that I am not convinced these tests strongly correlate with one’s ability to successfully complete an undergrad degree.

I'm pretty sure that they do, at least if you're looking at the set of all students and not "students who got into university X". (If you only look at students who got in, you get issues like this [0] where height does not correlate with performance in the NBA, likely because short guys in the NBA had to be more skilled to get there in the first place)

After all, the ACT/SAT are largely poor IQ tests, and IQ really does predict academic success...

0: https://twitter.com/page_eco/status/1160900306588164096

[Apocryphon]

> they're the hardest part of admissions to game

Are they really?

[retortio]

Yes.