I don’t know if non-engineering schools will start requiring the SAT or ACT again, but it’s obvious that in order to do engineering, a student needs a certain minimum aptitude in math. I’d say that in order to do majors that involve reading and writing, they need a certain minimum ability in that, too, which correlates with their standardized test scores, but I don’t think that the top schools have gotten to the point of accepting that realization. Right now, test-optional helps them to shape the class the way that the school wants it, without having to take into account achievement on a standardized test.
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I remember seeing the Oxford University Mathematics Interview from Youtube. (I also tried to answer those math questions, it was fun ^o^) It shows pretty different selection process.
Like others mentioned in this thread, would be nice to see what research MIT did to come to that conclusion about the fit/math aptitude.
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Some studies at University of Oregon indicate that, for math and physics majors, a math SAT score of at least 600 appears to be the minimum for having a chance of attaining mastery of the subject, but no such minimum was found for other majors.
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What major wouldn’t require this, either in the major courses or required GE courses?
Colleges that have English composition general education requirements usually require them to be completed in the first year or two.
Some colleges, or some majors at some colleges, may have additional writing or communication requirements.
First, while it is true that high SES students score higher, it is not necessarily true that it benefits those students. MIT might take a 710 math student from a Tribal high school, because it’s an outlier in the way it is not for Snooty Prep.
Furthermore, MIT admissions are not a bunch of ignorant stumblebums who are unaware of the imperfections of standardized tests - or for that matter, any single piece of information on a student. That’s why it’s better to get more information rather than less.
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Strong agree here. This, I believe, is true for all college admissions offices. They are aware of shortcomings in the data but can sort through it according to their desired profiles. They need to do the same with all other aspects of the application - GPA, ECs, recommendations, essays.
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Pure speculation, but for MIT I would guess about 760 Math, 720 English. (Though they do admit at least a few applicants, surely, who score under those thresholds. Maybe those are the unhooked thresholds.)
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MIT doesn’t have many of the traditional hooks. Legacy is not considered, nor are children of faculty. As far as I know, neither are development children. Athletes are given some consideration, but are a 50-50 shot at best. URM and first gen are still given consideration as far as I know.
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An interesting twitter thread on MIT testing reinstatement by Akil Bello, testing expert:
Some points he makes:
What’s interesting is that though they site the research foundation of this decision a bunch of times, no research is ever actually given. I’d love to see their studies on the predictive validity of the tests in their schools.
They claim the centrality of math but less than half the ACT is math and only half the SAT is math. So what does that mean about the other halves of theses test and the noise they add to evaluation?
There is no calc, no pre-calc, barely any trig, and only a smattering of algebra two on these tests. So what is it telling them about preparation for calculus? (not a sarcastic question).
Not even college board/ACT says you can’t make good decisions without a test. Look at the correlation numbers from ACT and College Board… they tell a different story about predicting success. (Q&A with Stuart Schmill: Q&A: Stuart Schmill on MIT’s decision to reinstate the SAT/ACT requirement)
“I don’t begrudge them making the best business decision they can for themselves. I just wish they wouldn’t use “for equity” as their justification.”
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Yes, that does seem obvious, doesn’t it?
Yes. Now I get it.
Verbal on the SAT isn’t noise at MIT.
In order to graduate you need to take the required courses in HASS (Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences). These are NOT the MIT equivalent of "rocks for jocks’ or “physics for poets”. These are actual university level courses, taught by actual professors with the same level of rigor as the science and math classes. So a history or poli sci class is going to have the same enormous reading and writing demands as any college course anywhere else.
A kid who is below the bar in analytical reading is going to struggle mightily…
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The equity notion of the SAT and ACT that they’re pretending to refer to is that some very bright students with high potential (and maybe with lower grades for whatever reason) would score high, and be admitted, and do well. Perhaps some overlooked genius from a poor rural or inner city school with mediocre grades for some reason (maybe they had to work 40 hours/week while in high school to support their bedridden mother) could score very highly on the SAT/ACT and hence be admitted. Yeah, right. Far, far more likely that the straight A student from these low-performing schools is revealed to be woefully unprepared for college level work by their low SAT score.
But MIT is right to require the SAT/ACT again, since they’ve apparently go the data that (no surprise) shows that a low SAT/ACT score indicates that the student is not ready for the level of work required at MIT.
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Like I said in a much earlier post on this thread, I sure hope they publish that data!
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That is definitely not the reason.
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Correct.
SAT and (perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent) ACT, are more about testing students’ basic but fundamental facility for and ease with math, so they can hopefully show similar ease and facility when learning higher level math and other subjects that require math.
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For colleges like MIT, it may be more like “if you can only get 500 on SAT math, you are not likely to do well in MIT math”, but even a high-700s-to-800 math score is not really a positive distinction among numerous other applicants with similar math scores.
If MIT were designing a college admission test for its own use, it may look significantly different and more difficult than the SAT and ACT.
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Absolutely. If an applicant gets 500 on SAT math, s/he is obviously seriously deficient in some math fundamentals and there exists too big a gap in required math skills to be filled in order to be successful at a school like MIT.
I’m sure.
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