Slashdot Mirror
University of Chicago To Stop Requiring ACT and SAT Scores For Prospective Undergraduates (chicagotribune.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: For years, a debate has simmered at the nation's universities and colleges over how much weight should be given to standardized tests as officials consider students for admission -- and whether they should be required at all. A growing number, including DePaul University, have opted to stop requiring the SAT and ACT in their admissions process, saying the tests place an unfair cost and burden on low-income and minority students, and ultimately hinder efforts to broaden diversity on campus. But the trend has escaped the nation's most selective universities. Until now. The University of Chicago announced Thursday that it would no longer require applicants for the undergraduate college to submit standardized test scores. While it will still allow applicants to submit their SAT or ACT scores, university officials said they would let prospective undergraduates send transcripts on their own and submit video introductions and nontraditional materials to supplement their applications.
It is wrong to give one testing corporation full power over all young people's future...
If 4 years of University and an Internship work well - that tells a lot more than a few hour long multiple choice test.
While it will still allow applicants to submit their SAT or ACT scores, university officials said they would let prospective undergraduates send transcripts on their own and submit video introductions and nontraditional materials to supplement their applications.
It may not be required, but I suspect that most students will provide them anyway. Students apply to multiple universities so they will have the test scores. The students who don't provide them may be at a disadvantage compared to the students that do. These tests exist because it is hard to screen every possible application by watching their personalized video. Objective measures are useful and they won't go away.
If anything, that's yet another damning indictment of the US education system.
The US education system, is indeed, garbage, unless you're wealthy. While we're at it, so is health care and many other indicators of quality of life. The US is a really, really awful place to live if you're not wealthy.
I don't respond to AC's.
In his book "Friday", Robert Heinlein predicted (in 1982) The California Confederacy voting to grant a Bachelor degree to every citizen graduating high school.
Because someone observed "that Californians with college degrees earned more than those with high school diplomas alone".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
From the High School I graduated from, most students came out with at least two or three AP classes under their belt. I completely passed out of my college's chemistry and English requirements. Most of us got decent SAT/ACT grades and were accepted into decent universities.
My wife is getting interns from another local "magnet" high school for kids who show aptitude in science and math (my wife's an engineer.) These are seniors in a magnet school, and they can barely use a desktop computer, nor form cogent sentences describing what they have done in a day's work via email. She gave one kid a day to put a couple pages of data into an Excel spreadsheet (should have taken an hour) and he did roughly 5% of the task.
Educational standards are pretty friggin' varied.
Where did you get the idea that college is a series of standardized tests? We're not talking about DeVry here, we're talking about the University of Chicago. Professors write their own tests. Some may use the same one year after year, but those are the lazy ones.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is also a bad thing. High schools are often biased about who gets into AP or Honors classes -- it's often a highly subjective application process where kids who teachers think will be successful (i.e. white/asian/rich) get priority.
Far better would be to LOWER the requirements for admission. Start new matriculants in larger classes, maybe partially online. Let those who excel continue. This is essentially the system in many European universities -- anyone with an HS diploma can get into med school, but lots of students are dropped after year 1 or 2.
Stanford hasn't required the SAT for some time
It isn't required, but nearly all applicants still submit scores.
The exceptions are mostly "legacy" children of alumni. If an application comes with a $1M donation to the endowment, then nobody is going worry about a silly little test score.
Fair point but the fact is we're not going to turn illiterate motherfuckers into literate motherfuckers by relaxing the standards. At the end of the day, this is more bullshit like "No Child Allowed Ahead" or whatever it's called.