It is much easier to do whatever you want in admissions without test scores. Of course AOs prefer them. It makes their job unaccountable and gives them more power and discretion. They dont have to deal with any unfortunate consequences, such as kids in STEM classes who struggle greatly. That is a different department from admissions.
Sounds like that public college is headed for a legislative budget cut or personnel turnover. Some AOs think they are omnipotent. They will learn otherwise.
Admissions is accountable to senior admin, which includes senior academic people. If schools are admitting kids who canāt do the work, they will hear about it from the faculty.
Then the school will decide what to do from there. UTās top 6% acceptance policy has directly resulted in the creation of academic pathways for those students who arenāt ready for prime timeā¦UT has invested tens of millions of dollars in this program.
Applications have been up at state flagships all over the country, so I donāt think it is just the South. Lots of Californians bulking up the applications to Oregon, Washington, and Colorado. Michigan and Wisconsin donāt seem to be hurting for applicants. 
Thereās always a time lag for these types of things. So of course, maybe AOs can create a great class based on GPA and essays. We shall see.
And Iād also be interested in career outcomes tied to SAT score/GPA. You have grade inflation in college too, and extensive testing by employers in more competitive (and renumerative fields).
It was answered; youāre just ignoring the answer. You seem to be of the opinion that college admissions/enrollment peeps only have one objective. They have multiple objectives, and equity goals and the maximization of class strength are often at cross-purposes. Covid has provided academia with a convenient excuse to more heavily weight the former via test optional because of the reduced threat of legal challenges and public backlash.
āKids who canāt do the workā is an odd framing. The average GPA at selective colleges is somewhere around 3.6. Most who apply can do the work, including students admitted test-optional. So, none of this has anything to do with whether or not students can do the work. Itās a question of whether others were more deserving of an opportunity to do the work. And your UT example is another state-run system. One can rely on GPA and rank when you can influence how the bulk of applicants are graded and ranked in high school. Private, selective schools just canāt do what Berkeley and UT do.
Many schools have been test optional for a long time, Bowdoin for more than 50 years. I have heard the Bowdoin ex-dean of admissions talk about how they are quite able to identify students who will do well there, in the absence of a test score.
Some long time TO schools like Ithaca, Bates, and DePaul have tracked college GPAs and grad rates by test submitters vs non-submitters and published the results, that info has been covered in many other CC threads.
A small quibble. Because of the lack of a national curriculum/tests, I disagree that a 3.6 gpa means that a student can do the work.
Decades ago, my (engineering) class had a top student transfer from another college. Kid failed all the core classes. Went back to old school, finished top of class.
Perhaps itās different in the liberal arts.
Not sure where you got that idea, I agree they have multiple objectives.
IMO higher grades/test scores does not mean āmore deservingā.
Regarding the UT exampleā¦.I raised their rack and stack model (for 75% of the class) to show that students who are not ready to do college level work do gain acceptance there. Not sure why you mentioned UCB, as it is a holistic admissions model, not comparable to UTA.
And within a college, kids sort themselves into majors that they are comfortable with. I remember the first mid term of a freshman math class at my sonās college ā the range of scores were 5 to 100 on a 100 point paper. Then the dust settles, and kids that need to drop out of that class drop out etcā¦
Thatās where we part ways, and the difference is irreconcilable.
Anyone can identify certain kids who will do well at Bowdoin. Top half of your class at Phillips Andover or Sidwell Friends? Top quarter at Rye High School? No problem. They will do well there. It is the unknown kid from an unknown rural or inner city school whose top grades in high school mean nothing given the weak curriculum and lack of standards who really need those test scores, to show that despite attending Appalachia High they are academically capable.
The UT experience shows quite painfully that top grades in oneās high school does not necessarily mean college ready. I am glad UT is addressing that thru remediation, but will other schools too? Should we expect they will have to?
I will defer to the extensive study that UC did showing test scores are absolutely predictive, and then decided to ignore in the admissions process.
My son gave me this example of a kid from rural Arkansas who was the best kid in the surrounding region of several towns in the past 10 years. Then he came to college and found that the reading load in humanities classes in freshman year is 250-300 pages per subject per week, and was floored. He got depressed, was seriously drunk one day, and was being very candid with my son that he canāt deal with this. My son thinks that some of the kids that start drinking seriously in college do so because a) they left a gf/bf at home, and are feeling homesick and/or b) canāt handle the freshman load.
Fair point re:Bowdoin, although the number of private school students is on the decline there.
RE:low income kids needing a test, Iāll give you Jon Boeckenstedtās top 9 SAT/ACT tropes. Number 2, the diamond in the rough theory is I think what you are referring to. Jon is a reknowned enrollment management leader, who brings a lot of data to his points.
Actually, I think he makes, perhaps unintentionally, a case for a lottery system. Or we could go with Zodiac signs.
I have a simple way to redress all the college admissions issues. Everyone gets a ticket. They pull numbers from a hat. All parents can continue to discuss why all students are deserving and really merited that selection. Tests wonāt matter, GPA wonāt matter, nothing will matter. Everyone can continue to believe the system is working.
We are almost there
I would be up for a lottery system for half the spots at any school with ~10% RD rates. Get into your instate safety, and roll the dice. You would probably get just as diverse a class with the same academic outcomes.
Maybe a placement test for STEM so they can have remedial courses.
Did the kid graduate?
Frankly, I think we are at the point where there will be a huge Class Action suit v. holistic admissions. Supreme Court will have a ruling on AA this year might also lead to expanded thoughts.
At some point, people are going to wake up and recognize that these schools are getting massive tax $$ from the public and they should be subject to some rules.