corrected
Not really. Different admission criteria have different correlations with income, some of which are near negligible. For example, table 1 of the the study at https://cshe.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/publications/rops.geiser._sat_6.13.07.pdf lists the following degrees of correlation with parent’s income among 80k UC students.
Correlation with Family Income
SAT Verbal – 0.32
SAT Math – 0.24
HS GPA – 0.04
Some might consider the 0.04 GPA-income correlation negligible… certainly far lower than scores. This relates to why test optional admits consistently average lower incomes than test submitter admits at test optional colleges. The kids whose test scores are the one main weak point on their application are more likely to be lower income than higher income. It’s obviously not a perfect correlation. There are many exceptions. However, it’s enough to influence the average income for test optional admits vs test submitter admits.
Similarly test optional admits are more likely to be women than men since women average higher GPAs and other transcript type metrics than men, with similar or lower average combined scores than men. Any group for which test scores are more likely to be relative weak point compared to other parts of the application is more likely to benefit from test optional.
“Diversity” can mean a lot of things. If you mean URM, first gen, or similar; these are negatively correlated with parent’s income. Favoring these groups, tends to reduce the average income of the class. Of course the URMs, first gen, or others who are admitted average higher income than members of the same “diversity” group who are rejected. This is expected since admission involves other considerations besides just “diversity” status.
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The gates have been opened and they’re unlikely to close. I predict next year will be much the same as this year. I think the value of the tests will be forever diminished and that acceptance rates to top schools will continue to fall.
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This is an example of a poor “study”. Unlike standardized test scores, GPAs aren’t standardized (variations between schools, variations in rigors between classes, variations in grade assignments by teachers, grade inflations, etc). Lumping them together in a correlation “study” is just poor scientific practice (garbage in, garbage out?). If they had chosen to study the correlation of college essays with wealth, perhaps they would say the quality of those essays are uncorrelated with wealth either. It all depends on the methodology.
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My own prediction is that the SAT/ACT will continue to fade in relevance as currently constructed. What I am not so sure about is whether or not College Board or ACT can develop a test that shows a stronger correlation to overall college success. I still see a possible niche for standardized testing due to a wide range of high school experiences in the US, but it needs to show a larger correlation to student outcomes to bring more value.
The conclusion does not depend on the methodology. Literally every study I am aware of that has ever compared how HS GPA and scores are correlated with income found that scores are much more correlated with income than HS GPA, regardless of methodology. It does not matter if you compare within a particular school (to avoid between school variations), or if you use weighted to minimized difference in rigors, or if you use rank, or if you use the academic rating assigned by readers instead of grades. Any methodology results in a similar conclusion – scores have a greater correlation with income than do grades. An example study with some other combinations, including within a particular school is at https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/liufall2013/files/2013/10/New_Perspectives.pdf .
Consistent with scores being more correlated with income than other areas of the application, every review I am aware of that compared measures of income between test submitters and test optional admits at a test optional admits found test optional admits averaged lower income than test submitters. This occurred at all 21 of the 21 colleges in the review linked above. It occurs at selective holistic colleges like Bates, as well as less selective and less holistic colleges. It even occurs at colleges where test optional admits average a higher GPA than test submitters. Regardless of how colleges use grades and scores in their admission system, test optional admits average lower income than test submitters, implying that test scores are more likely to be weaker than other sections of the application for low income kids than high income kids.
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Note that this is consistent with a College Board study that found that SAT discrepent students tended to have higher income parents, while HS GPA discrepent students tended to have lower income parents.
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It seems it would be straightforward to control for schools that have grade inflation in the studies above. Many low SES schools are the worst offenders of grade inflation thinking it benefits their students. I would be interested in seeing whether the studies above did take grade inflation/deflation into account…for example, one place that grade inflation may be obvious is comparing average/mid 50%ile GPAs to AP test scores (generally found in HS profiles). Note also that some CB studies have suffered from poor design and/or interpretation in the past…easy to find details with a google search.
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https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/research/grade-inflation-high-schools-2005-2016 suggests that grade inflation in North Carolina high schools in 2005-2016 was greater in high SES schools.
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Yes, grade inflation is definitely in some high SES schools too (I’m not aware of any total US data), but my point still stands that many low SES schools are also guilty of grade inflation.
Are you aware of any studies being done since the Khan Academy and SAT cooperation started?
I can understand that in the past, high income parents could pay for expensive SAT prep lessons but that is really not necessary any longer. I would think this impact would start to be seen?
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I will assume that all succeeding posts will be making predictions - not analysis paralysis, or methodology debates, or debates in general.
I don’t question that SAT/ACT test scores may have higher correlation with wealth than GPAs. One of the reasons is that GPA ranges are much more compressed than even the latest generation of test scores. Compression causes distortion in correlations, making them much less meaningful.
I do agree that TO policies are here to stay, for better or for worse. The pressure for the change doesn’t just come from advocates for low-income students, but also from many higher income families. Few like to be tested, whatever income brackets they are in.
Based on the current trend toward intensive preparation compared to a few decades ago, SAT/ACT and other standardized tests are far more costly in terms of time and effort compared to a few decades ago. Even the low end amount of SAT/ACT preparation today referred to in What is the typical amount of SAT or ACT preparation these days? is far greater than the amount of SAT/ACT preparation a few decades ago.
So perhaps the dislike of being tested today may have to do with the large time cost that is expected today.
The tendency of intensive preparation may also be something that colleges think about when deciding test required/optional/blind policies – from the college’s point of view, does intensive preparation increase or decrease the value of SAT/ACT scores in terms of what they are looking for?
I don’t think colleges look at intensive preparation negatively, when you get to a selective college like we’re talking about, you have to do a lot of work, if you’re in stem, you’ll be solving lots of problems which is what you to prep for math-based, standardized tests. Similarly as my non-stem friends love to tell me (!), you’ll be doing a lot of reading, analyzing, writing which is similar to the CR/W section.
It would be unreasonable for colleges to think it’s not ok to prep for the standardize tests but ok to prep for your tests or essays in college. The only caveat you shouldn’t take it more than two times (pre-covid guidance).
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Also worth remembering: High school GPA is a much better predictor of first-year college success than standardized test scores. (That difference has shrunk over time, but it’s still there.)
Given that, one might well ask why more colleges haven’t gone test-optional or even no-tests previously. I would suggest that it’s inertia—and if inertia is at play, it often takes an outside shock to get the system to change.
Well, we’ve gotten our outside shock.
So yeah, schools that might have been considering moving away from standardized tests but didn’t want to risk being on the wrong side of the prestigiosity wars now have the cover they need to go all in. I expect we’ll see a fair number (some quite quietly, others loudly) at the very least way deemphasizing standardized tests, if not ditching them completely.
(Well, or, for the really powerful ones—see the California systems—experimenting at coming up with their own.)
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Note that the California public universities already emphasized SAT/ACT less than HS GPA even when they did (mostly) require SAT/ACT for frosh applicants.
However, colleges more focused on climbing USNWR rankings did have incentive to emphasize SAT/ACT more, since the student selectivity part of the rankings was mostly based on SAT/ACT scores, with a smaller portion based on percentage of frosh within the top decile or quartile (depending on which ranking group) HS class rank (i.e. for more selective colleges where almost all students were in the top decile HS class rank, USNWR student selectivity was practically all SAT/ACT based).
But if USNWR de-emphasizes SAT/ACT in the student selectivity part of the rankings, that could change this incentive on the part of the colleges focused on climbing the USNWR rankings.
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We need to get back on track. Who cares how scores relate to income? The assumptions I can imagine behind this are off.
Do you think colleges will continue TO?
I don’t know.
As I said somewhere, if they now need scores for merit, they do have options to rewrite the standards. That won’t likely happen by this fall. But could, for the next class.
As many of us agree, there needs time to see how this works out.
And as long as elites can find the students they DO want, life goes on.
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I agree with “the life goes on.” For this reason, colleges will now be able to take students they want without worrying about their scores. And because of that, among other things, we will see tests get closer and closer to being non-existent.
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If TO policies remain near universal even after COVID as most of us expect, and if there isn’t any evidence of tangible benefit submitting test scores for college admissions, then it isn’t much of a leap to predict that the tests themselves will gradually but surely disappear.
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