Ironic Twist in the SAT Debate

A growing number of top liberal arts colleges, dissatisfied with the SAT, the reliance on a standardized test in admission decisions, and the college rankings culture that feeds it, have opted to make college entrance exams optional. Anyone who's studied statistics or human behavior could predict the outcome: students with less than stellar SAT scores will opt not to submit them, while those with higher test scores and lower grades will see them as bolstering their chances. Jay Matthews covers a new article documenting just this scenario at 32 SAT-optional schools:

The result was stunning. Nearly all of them admitted to submitting inflated averages that did not include scores from students who did not submit them during the admissions process. Two refused to comment. Only one of them, Muhlenberg College, reported “a full and honest SAT average, requiring students who took the test to submit scores after enrolling and reporting their SAT average inclusive of those scores,” Epstein said.

This made a significant difference, he discovered. “Publicly available and privately shared data reveal that SAT scores for non-submitters average 100-150 points lower than submitters,” he wrote in his article. “Eliminating those scores for 25 percent to 50 percent of enrolling students results in manufactured SAT average increases between 25 and 75 points. These results imply that 31 of the 32 SAT-optional institutions in question are the beneficiaries of SAT average boosts...”

To see how this affected individual institutions, see this graphic from the NY Times. These results should not be surprising. By marketing the SAT as an option, these institutions naturally had more applicants who might not have otherwise applied. But it's ironic that to demonstrate against a manipulable test and a college rankings system that favors institutions that lower their admission rates and increase their test scores, these colleges bolstered their rankings by...lowering their admission rates and increasing their test scores. Funny how that works out.