The case for using standardized tests in college admissions

Two perspectives, one conclusion

Yesterday, I came across two articles regarding college admissions that might be of interest to our readers. One is by Peter Arcidiacono, a professor of economics at Duke whose excellent statistical analyses in the Harvard case quantified the extraordinary extent to which the college disfavored Asian American applicants because of their race. The other is by David Leonhardt who, against all odds, writes a worthwhile daily newsletter for the New York Times.

Both push back against the abandonment of the SAT by some colleges. However, their objections to discarding the test are somewhat different.

Arcidiacono favors using tests like the SAT in part for reasons of economic fairness. He says that, yes, using test scores benefits “the rich,” but that other admissions factors — so-called ‘holistic admissions criteria — benefit the rich even more.

Arcidiacono’s main concern, though, is with transparency. In his view, “deliberately murky admissions processes deeply undermine the public’s trust in higher education.” They also limit the ability of high school students to make good decisions about where to apply. With more transparency, they wouldn’t waste as much time and money applying to colleges where they have no chance of being admitted.

Use of SAT scores, a wholly objective criterion, makes the admissions process less murky and more transparent. Reliance on “holistic” analysis works in the other direction.

I agree. However, I want to add that primary blame for the opaqueness of the admissions process rests not with colleges, but with the Supreme Court.

The mischief began with Justice Powell. His opinion in the Bakke case, which became the guiding light for college admissions offices, accepted “diversity” as a compelling interest that can justify consideration of race in the admissions process.

Not wanting colleges to focus the diversity analysis solely on race, Powell defined diversity to include such factors as “exceptional personal talents, unique work or service experience, leadership potential, maturity, demonstrated compassion, a history of overcoming disadvantage, ability to communicate with the poor, or other qualifications deemed important.” Muddying the waters even more, he described an admissions process that “operates in [a] way flexible enough to consider all pertinent elements of diversity in light of the particular qualifications of each applicant, and to place them on the same footing for consideration, although not necessarily according them the same weight.” “Indeed,” he added, “the weight attributed to a particular quality may vary from year to year depending upon the ‘mix’ both of the student body and the applicants for the incoming class.”

Could an admissions process be any murkier and less transparent than the one Powell depicted?

The Supreme Court doubled-down on murkiness a quarter of a century later when it considered two University of Michigan race-preference cases — Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. Grutter was a challenge to the University’s regime of race-based preferences in law school admissions; Gratz was a challenge to race-based preferences in undergraduate admissions.

The two preference regimes operated very differently, albeit to the same effect. The undergraduate school used a transparent method for admitting students and preferring blacks. Admissions were based strictly on a point system. Points were awarded for grades, test scores, etc., with lots of points (one-fifth of those needed to guarantee admission) added for applicants from certain minority groups.

The law school used a “holistic” approach — a black box. Race played a big role, but not in a way that could be quantified other than indirectly, by looking very carefully at outcomes.

The Supreme Court upheld the law school’s admissions policy. It struck down the undergraduate school’s.

These results weren’t all that surprising. The law school, run by lawyers, had followed Justice Powell’s guidance. The undergraduate school had not.

Neither preference regime should have been upheld. But it seemed to me that approving the law school’s was particularly offensive.

The University of Michigan is a state school. Isn’t it better if the state’s taxpayers know (1) exactly what credentials their sons and daughters (of whatever race) need to be admitted to the university and (2) the precise magnitude of advantage the university is conferring on blacks?

It was bad enough to decide Grutter incorrectly. It was even worse, in my view, to have endorsed a black box admissions process while rejecting a transparent one.

For me, the lesson of the Michigan cases was: the more clever that Supreme Court Justices try to be when they split differences on matters involving public policy, the more likely they are to get it wrong. For colleges the lesson was more straightforward: hide the ball.

Leonhardt’s piece lands a more direct hit against abandoning the SAT. Focusing on the predictive value of SAT scores and on their value in identifying disadvantaged students who can succeed at elite colleges, he writes:

Higher education has a standardized-test problem, and it’s not the problem that many people think.

During the pandemic, dozens of colleges dropped the requirement that applicants take the SAT or ACT. Although administrators generally described the move as temporary, most colleges have since stuck to a test-optional policy.

But the loss of SAT and ACT scores has become a problem, administrators have told me. Without test scores, admissions officers sometimes struggle to distinguish between applicants who are likely to thrive at selective colleges and those likely to struggle. Why? Because high school grades do not always provide enough information, especially because of grade inflation in recent years.

As Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University, recently wrote, “Standardized test scores are a much better predictor of academic success than high school grades.”

(Emphasis added)

Predicting academic success is exactly what admissions offices should be focused on. Among the reasons for doing so is the one advanced by Richard Sander and Gail Heriot — avoiding “mismatch.” Relatively poor performance in math and science courses tends to drive black students out of these areas of study and into softer ones (like Black Studies). It thus reduces the number of blacks who enter the fields of science and medicine. If these students were well matched with colleges, they likely would stick with math and science, and eventually end up in science and medicine.

Mismatch in law school admissions also works to the disadvantage of its intended beneficiaries. Sander has shown that the use of massive preferences depresses black outcomes so much that eliminating preferences would actually increase the number of black lawyers.

But what about claims that standardized tests like the SAT work to the disadvantage of black students who are likely to succeed at top colleges. Like Arcidiacono, Leonhardt rejects this notion:

The emerging data from academic research tells a different story: Standardized tests are less biased than many other parts of the college application process, like extracurricular activities, college essays and teacher recommendations. An admissions system that drops mandatory tests in favor of these other factors gives big advantages to affluent students.

Test scores, by contrast, seem to be useful at identifying students from disadvantaged backgrounds who have enormous potential, even if their scores aren’t quite as high on average as those of well-off applicants. “When you don’t have test scores, the students who suffer most are those with high grades at relatively unknown high schools, the kind that rarely send kids to the Ivy League,” David Deming, a Harvard economist who has studied the issue, told me. “The SAT is their lifeline.”

(Emphasis added)

It looks like the “social justice” warriors at colleges that ditched the SAT or made it optional have things figured all wrong. Apparently, they are no better than moderate Supreme Court Justices when it comes to social engineering.