MIT reinstates ACT/SAT test requirement

[MITChris]

@mtmind

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, particularly your explanation of how MIT uses the scores and the “information” they provide. Again though, this analysis only seems pertinent to those students who choose to apply. I am curious about potentially qualified students who will see the test requirement, see the tippy-top scores of those usually admitted, and choose not to apply at all.

I agree with you. This is where our recruitment efforts — and particularly our partnerships with CBOs, Questbridge, etc — come in. As for the tippy top scores, I’ve been trying to explain that for 10+ years now (one must imagine Sisyphus happy) The Difficulty With Data | MIT Admissions

Isn’t that one of the unintended consequences of the test requirement in a landscape where most of the other top schools are TO or TB?

Possibly, yes. As we say in the post, when we stopped considering Subject Tests, it was largely because they had become so esoteric that they were too big a barrier to justify our usage of them given what else we could consider. Over the pandemic, we looked to see if we could get rid of the SATs, and decided we couldn’t, at least for now. But we’re data-driven about this, and as facts change, we’ll change.

[quote]
think many have the misconception that MIT experimented with TO and that it was a failure, but that doesn’t seem to be the case at all.[/quote]

Yes, it is a very unfortunate misreading of the scenario. I don’t know how we could have been clearer in our post(s) that this was about the pandemic, and that it was nothing about the admits from the last two years. So it goes.