Thread by @JonBoeckenstedt

How will colleges be able to evaluate students without an SAT score? A thread about a common question #TestOptional advocates hear a lot.

First and foremost, GPA is almost everything. The SAT and ACT follow GPA about 65%-70% of the time. In those cases, the SAT or ACT may give you a little extra insight, but it's so tiny that it's not worth the cost of the tests to society IMHO.

Thus, for most students, the original question is almost like saying, "How will you evaluate students without shoe size?" Or, "how will you evaluate students if you don't know they're left-handed or right-handed?" In all three cases, it makes no meaningful difference.

But of course, there are high testers with low GPA. Because people think ACT/SAT scores are meaningful (and of course, they do measure something) these students get a break.

BTW, these students are more likely to be white or Asian males from higher income families where the parents have college degrees. That's who the standardized tests benefit the most. And that's why it's hard for people to let go: The people who benefit have influence.

High GPA with low scores? People say, "Well, with low scores, they shouldn't get in."

These students are more likely black or Hispanic, and/or low income, and/or first-gen, and/or female.

These are the people disadvantaged by the tests. These are the people colleges tell, "Your four years of hard work are meaningless. We can tell from these tests that you can't do academic work." And, "because you come from a weak school, your GPA isn't the same as his."

Of course, American school funding models pretty much ensure that kids from less privileged backgrounds enroll in schools where there is less funding and less opportunity.

Can you think why that might be?

And, can you think who likely started giving admissions officers at highly selective institutions the excuse to say, "Well, a 4.0 at that school is not the same as a 4.0 at our school?"

Guess. I'll wait.

So the same people who like SATs are the people who don't like high GPAs if they come from "those schools."

This is the privileged people doing exactly what economists would predict they'd do: Engaging in "rent seeking."

So, in our society, when SAT and GPA are in conflict, some places give preference to SAT because it's easy to convince people the tests are fair to poor kids (you either know it or you don't) while GPA is unfair to wealthy kids.

Imagine that. Bizzaro World.

Even though GPA is always a better predictor. And even though maybe 35% of variance in freshman grades is explained by even the best predictive models.

Admissions is not a crap shoot, but it's not rocket surgery, either, as the man from Texas probably once said to Molly Ivins.

So when you ask, "How will colleges make admissions decisions without SAT scores?" here is the answer:

You don't need them, because they're not valuable. Unless you want to give advantage to the already advantaged.

If you want to do that, then by all means, go right ahead.

Then the question becomes, "What I meant to say is how will you evaluate students without the SAT when some students have the SAT?" And that answer is simple, too.

We do it when some students have the SAT and some have the ACT. We do it when some students play violin and some don't. We do it when some are debaters and others aren't. We do it when one student can throw a football 60 yards and others can't.

And we can do it when some have both the ACT and SAT and others have neither.

That's it. Got it? Good.

Oh, and #EMTalk