Test-Optional Admissions Hurt Poor Kids

A new working paper from Dartmouth College researchers is providing yet more evidence that test-optional college admissions ended up hurting the very disadvantaged students the policy change was meant to help. Instead of boosting the chances of low-income or first-generation students, researchers found that not sending in their scores dramatically reduced their chances of admission. 

“Under test score optional policies, less advantaged applicants who are high achieving submit test scores at too low a rate, significantly reducing their admissions chances; such applicants increase their admissions probability by a factor of 3.6x (from 2.9 percent to 10.2 percent) when they report their scores,” reads the paper’s abstract. “Much more than commonly understood, elite institutions interpret test scores in the context of background, and availability of test scores on an application can promote rather than hinder social mobility.”

Following pandemic lockdowns that made standardized test-taking difficult, many colleges and universities switched to test-optional admissions, in which students were no longer required to send their SAT or ACT scores along with their applications. The change stuck around, with more than 2,100 of around 2,600 four-year colleges currently using test-optional or test-free admissions. The motivation for this change was rooted in a belief that standardized tests are biased against disadvantaged students—forgetting, however, that other measures like essays and grades also correlate with family income. Further, test scores have consistently been shown to accurately predict students’ future academic performance. 

“We find that test scores are strongly predictive of academic success and are significantly more predictive than other measures, such as high school GPA. Moreover, the relationship between test scores and academic success is similarly strong across income and demographic groups,” the researchers note.

While many elite colleges have already reversed course upon realizing that test-optional admissions actually resulted in less diverse freshman classes, others have been slow to get rid of test-optional admissions. This latest paper, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that the test-optional policy encouraged disadvantaged applicants to not submit their scores, even if they had relatively high scores.

This tendency, according to the researchers, likely comes from disadvantaged (first generation, or from a low-income town or high school) students believing that they should not submit their test scores unless they are well within the range of accepted Dartmouth applicants. However, disadvantaged students seem to be evaluated differently than regular applicants. A low-income student with a 1400 SAT score, for example, might be perceived as a “diamond in the rough,” even if his or her score is well below even the 25th percentile score for admitted students.

“The finding that students with different backgrounds submit scores at about the same rate makes sense given the limited information students have on what is interpreted as a competitive score,” the paper reads. “However, students would not know the method in which the Admissions Office uses SAT scores in context and the degree to which a 1400 might be a very competitive score for an applicant coming from a less resourced high school or a high school with lower test scores or that offers few AP classes.”

Essentially, colleges aren’t judging disadvantaged students by the same standards as other students. But disadvantaged students don’t assume this, leading to them not submitting their scores under the belief that their high but not incredibly high scores will hurt them. That means that if elite colleges really want more diverse student populations, they should ditch test-optional admissions and start asking students to fork over their test scores.

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