Dartmouth College requires applicants to submit SAT scores in their applications starting this year (class of 2029), after a 4-year hiatus.
The announcement was made on February 5. This is the second school in the US, after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to restore the requirement for SAT/ACT scores (two standardized tests used for university admission in the US).
Dartmouth, however, is the first Ivy League school to make a decision. The remaining seven of the elite private colleges are still reevaluating their use of standardized testing for admission.
Dartmouth President Sian Beilock explained that the decision was made after a study last year. Four Dartmouth professors combed through admissions data from the years the school required SAT/ACT testing, then compared students who took the test to those who did not. The results showed that students who took the SAT/ACT performed better academically and had higher college scores.
“This is a significant predictor of student success in Dartmouth’s curriculum, regardless of a student’s family background or income,” Beilock wrote.
Photo: Thenbcatalyst
The SAT-optional policy is said to have unintentionally caused Dartmouth to overlook potential students. Lee Coffin, Dartmouth's vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid, said Dartmouth always looks at applicants' applications holistically, but in reality, GPA and extracurricular activities alone are not enough to evaluate students.
Four professors said standardized test scores would help Dartmouth filter out international students and domestic students from lesser-known high schools.
“We are getting more and more applications from all over the world, so to find high-achieving students, standardized testing is a useful tool,” said Bruce Sacerdote, a professor in the Department of Economics and a member of the research team.
Additionally, Coffin said many students still submit SAT/ACT scores even though the school does not require them, so Dartmouth sees this as a way to weed out students who are not really serious about the school.
Top US universities often consider many factors when evaluating students, including academic performance, standardized test scores, essays, letters of recommendation, and extracurricular activities. When the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, many universities dropped the SAT/ACT requirement because the test is expensive, takes a lot of time and effort for students, causing inequality for students with less economic conditions. The US Center for Fairness and Integrity said that more than 1,900 universities do not require applicants to submit standardized test scores for the fall of 2024.
Doan Hung (According to WSJ, NY Times, National Review )
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