MIT didn’t make the decision in a vacuum. It’s likely been discussed both internally and with some of its peers for awhile.
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Hopefully, not with its peers… Section 1 of the Sherman Act frowns on such things.
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From the class of 2025, we know that 99% of the admits have a 750+ on their math SAT, and no one gets in with under a 700.
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I’m not sure discussing the pros and cons of standardized testing with peers necessarily triggers the antitrust provisions, but I’m no expert.
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Right, but we don’t know the proportion of admitted students and matriculated students who applied test optional in the Class of 2025 (current first years).
Class of 2025 was test optional. But, now that you mention it, I vaguely recall a similar score range for math for prior years.
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Okay, but is there any reason to believe that next cycle, when MIT goes back to requiring test scores, that they would admit more students in the 700-740 range? It seems to me they drew a line in the sand even with test optional.
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That’s a good question, one I don’t know the answer to, and won’t even speculate. I know for sure that URMs score lower on standardized tests for many reasons, and if MIT intends on increasing the percentage of URMs, it seems they would have to give on the test scores.
Of course, schools have always been able to accept students with low test scores to increase diversity, accept athletes, etc. We can see that a bit in the CDS test score ranges of matriculants, but really we want the full range of admitted student test scores, like UChicago shows. UChicago has historically accepted some (I assume very few) with low test scores, as low as 20 ACT.
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Tangential to this argument-- but I want to weigh in on the discussion that test scores by definition makes it harder for URM’s/non affluent students to get admitted- that was not the case when I worked for a company which used SAT scores as a screener (one of many, BTW, not the only one) for new hires.
Using SAT scores was an equalizer of sorts- a kid from a HBCU that we’d never hired from, and knew nothing about- was over the threshold if his/her SAT scores were within our target range. That resulted in some fantastic hires who would likely have been ignored without the SAT screener. A kid from Eastern Directional University with a high GPA and the “all things being equal” on the resume got a big push from having high SAT scores. As we all know there are lots of reasons why a stellar HS student ends up at Eastern Directional- usually relating to money, needing to commute to help take care of siblings or elderly relatives, etc.
Was it perfect? No. Did it help increase the diversity of our pipeline and our hires? Absolutely. Is it problematic that rich kids prep and take the test a zillion times and poor kids take it “one and done”? Absolutely-- but we were a for-profit company trying lots of different things to enhance the diversity of our new hires, not a not-for-profit trying to fix every social injustice on the planet.
Just saying- the situation is more nuanced than “SAT’s favor the rich and the white over everyone else”. The high scoring kid from the worst HS on the South Side of Chicago now has a fighting chance… at a minimum, an adcom is going to notice.
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This!
I have long said that the true value of the SAT is in showing how kids do relative to their peers. Our local public school has an average SAT math score of about 700, so a student scoring 700 provides no positive information to MIT about why to admit this student over others from the school.
If on the other hand, a student scores a 700 where the average score is a 400, then this student went way beyond what is expected given their learning environment, suggesting the ability to initially survive and later thrive at MIT.
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Except that many such students may not have any SAT scores at all. If they started at a community college and then transferred to the four year school to complete a BA/BS degree, they would not have needed SAT scores for any admission purpose. Of course, during COVID-19 SAT cancellations, students from low income families may not have been able to travel several states away to find an open seat for an SAT (but was able to go to a test-optional/blind university that understood the lack of SAT access during COVID-19, or started at a community college).
So if you require SAT scores for employment, you may be screening out as many as or more than the ones you find.
Yes and yes, I get it. My current company does not ask SAT scores of new grads, so I don’t have any insight as to how the companies which do ask are handling the lack of scores.
However- to your point- most companies ALREADY screen out more than the ones they find. Ratio’s of 100:1. So one interview out of every 100 resumes. Nobody is losing sleep over the NUMBER of rejections- it’s WHO is getting rejected which is troublesome. Systematically screening out Latina candidates for example- that system wouldn’t hold up in court, let alone the troubling societal elements.
And SAT scores are not used as a solo screener at any organization I am aware of. It is one of several datapoints. It is not perfect, it has its limitations (as you’ve noted). But in many cases, it can help a young person who attended a “not well known college”; it can help a young person with a low GPA who challenged his or herself by taking really tough classes when compared with the “perfect” GPA of someone who retook courses they’d already had in HS, never ventured outside the academic comfort zone, etc,
Not by itself- but it rounds out the picture.
There are always students without SAT scores btw… students who go to college after the military, who take advantage of a pathways program which does not require scores. Non-traditional students who find their way to college after a decade or more of work. So it’s never been the case that everyone has a standardized test score to offer- it was just a readily available stat for a large percentage of applicants.
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Did anyone here say anything about white people?
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Here’s the cold hard reality. Intellectually, the SAT/ACT are a joke. If a student can’t ace the SAT/ACT, there is no way that student will be competitive at an elite technical school/major. So maybe it should not be school specific, but major specific, in terms of being a requirement.
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IMO, they just reinstalled one hoop to go through in their admission policy. Since SAT score has some positive correlation to one’s academic readiness, it is safe to put it back if only just to reduce the workload of their AOs.
Every thread I’ve ever read on CC about SAT’s always goes racial. Apologies if I went there too quickly. NOBODY said anything about white people on this particular thread, I retract my comment.
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Just curious would it be fairer if MIT just designs their own tests 
Similarly to apply to those prestigious conservatories or music school, candidates need to prepare for the auditions.
From reading the blog, they implied they have certain set of fits in mind, particularly in math.
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With free internet access to retired ACTs, it is very possible to do well on the ACT with no prep class, and just one sitting. Take a retired ACT on their website under timed conditions, for diagnostic purposes. Use a standard prep book, self-prep, and keep taking practice tests to tease out the weak spots. This is the plan that got my kid a 36 overall (34 in math, 36 on all others, having had precalc before taking the exam) in just one sitting.
Taking the test over and over in a testing center won’t really teach a student anything. Seeing what they get wrong on free old released ACTs, and studying to fill in the blanks, will. Of course, a private tutor for many hours might help, too, but it’s most definitely not a necessity.
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The problem, from MIT’s point of view, is that the SAT and ACT are the incumbents. A new college admission test specific to MIT (or MIT + a small number of other highly selective universities) would require support from an existing testing company’s infrastructure, or building a new testing infrastructure with national (and perhaps international) coverage from scratch, neither of which is likely to happen.