MIT reinstates ACT/SAT test requirement

[MWDadOf3]

I’m puzzled by this.

I presume MIT gets far more applicants with SATs >=1500 (or ACT equivalent) than it can admit.

So the winnowing process is clearly not over at SAT >= 1500.

Surely MIT also looks at courses, GPAs, etc.

But, assuming you have at least a slight cushion built in on these (i.e. you don’t demand a 4.0 uw, or that the kid took 18 AP classes just because that was theoretically possible at their HS), then I’m guessing that if your academic winnowing (for kids at strong HSs) is something like:
SAT>=1500
uwGPA>=3.9
AP courses (or equivalent) >= say, 7 or 8, and strong classes for the non-AP stuff

I would think you’re STILL in a position where you’d need a lot of winnowing.

But now you’re onto what, IMO, are the less reliable parts of the application. LoRs, essays, ECs, are all pretty coachable/gameable for high-resource students. And again, I’d guess a pretty high % of applicants are at least reasonably strong in all these areas.

At some point, you need to choose.

You could just do a lottery among qualified applicants (and, from the other side of the table, it feels this way sometimes). But I assume you don’t. So saying that, for the SAT, or any other significant component of the application, there’s a threshold that’s basically pass/fail, and stronger values within the “pass” zone don’t matter - it just seems odd and, frankly, unlikely.

I suppose you might respond that the SAT is ~pass/fail from MIT’s perspective, but the other components are not. But if so, that feels odd, and I’d appreciate a bit of explanation.

[BKSquared]

@Aguadecoco

One would think that student isn’t applying to MIT because the student doesn’t want to struggle.

I envision a student that does well in his HS math class, is taking Calc senior yr and scored a 650-720 on the SAT math applying TO to a school like MIT. They like STEM and do well at school but they aren’t at the top of the applicant profile and would probably require some resources to keep up at a school like MIT.

This. It would help if kids (and their parents) looked beyond the shiny prestige of an MIT sweatshirt and determine whether MIT (or pick your favorite T10-20) offers an environment that the kid will embrace and have a chance to shine in a major and take classes dictated by their interests and not by the ability to maintain a respectable GPA.

[MITChris]

@MWDadOf3

I suppose you might respond that the SAT is ~pass/fail from MIT’s perspective, but the other components are not. But if so, that feels odd, and I’d appreciate a bit of explanation.

I guess I don’t know what feels odd? I’d say about half of the applicants who apply every year can do the work (means: we think they are prepared based on scores/grades/coursework). How we get from 50% to 4% is basically weeks and weeks of arguing about the composition of the class (i.e., it is not ranking applicants against each other to winnow down, but coming up with different permutations/combinations of applicants who collectively constitute the best class).

[IBG]

Caltech is all about advantage. The advantages in the student body became so clear to outsiders that committees have had to be setup to address them. However, I think it would be hard to find any school that wasn’t like that to some extent. At least MIT and a few others are need-blind.

[blossom]

I’m only a mom (and kid graduated a long time ago) but having seen his friends, SO’s, frat brothers, having a couple of folks even live with us for a time (we are closer to Cambridge than a lot of other people, even though we are out of state) my observation is/was that the math/science piece was just table-stakes. (even though in the popular mind everyone at MIT is a massive math nerd and gear head).

I think that’s what reinstating the SAT does. Takes out a little noise (kids below the threshold, both math AND verbal, to keep up with those HASS requirements) and allows the adcom’s to focus on the other stuff.

Honestly- some of the non-math and science stuff my kids classmates had was astonishing. A musician who turned down one of the top conservatories in the world for MIT. Kids who weren’t volunteering for the sake of logging in community service hours- but who had made incredible improvements in the way existing organizations served their populations. (and no- they didn’t start their own non-profit- they worked within the system to fix a problem). I can’t say I saw much athleticism (except for the ROTC folks and there were a few of those)… but presumably nobody drowned before graduation when they swam the length of the pool…

[ucbalumnus]

@BKSquared

take classes dictated by their interests and not by the ability to maintain a respectable GPA.

Of course, pre-meds inflict GPA-consciousness on themselves…

[TomSrOfBoston]

Boston University has announced that it will remain test optional for 2023-2024 cycle.

[LaBreaTarheel]

Chris,

I just wanted to say “thank you” for taking the time and effort to explain MIT’s perspective and process. I know it takes time during an already busy season, and the extra level of diplomacy involved in a subject sensitive and emotionally charged for so many requires unusual emotional reserves. MIT is lucky to have you, as is the community of aspirants and their loved ones. Thanks for being part of the community here.

[MITChris]

Thank you for your kind words, LBT! Part of my job interview in 2009 was writing fake collegeconfidential posts to prompts. I guess it just stuck in my brain that this was part of my job (now four jobs in the office later).

[ipw20x]

This is why so many colleges will move to test optional. More applications = lower acceptance rate = more prestige. There’s a reason colleges with sub 10% acceptance rates spend so heavily on marketing.

[skieurope]

So, assuming he takes a gap year, will Peter Parker’s application be successful because he has SAT scores or because he protected the multiverse despite the world now not knowing who he is? @MITChris

[MITChris]

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see: bit dot ly slash MITMarvel

[2Devils]

Thank you for this! D23 is just starting her list, loves the enewsletters MIT sends, but was worried in reality there would be no way to fit in at MIT with her classical fine-arts EC and other interests outside of her math/science academic side.

[blossom]

I don’t know if it’s an annual event, or just something that’s done periodically (and with Covid, who knows) but my kid’s friend said that playing on the stage of the Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of a “famous” conductor was a “once in a lifetime” experience. Except it happened a couple of times while my kid was at MIT- with the proud friends in the audience!!!

See if you can find the commencement bulletin online anywhere? It shows the majors/minors of the graduating class and your D will be interested to see how many kids figure out cool major/minor combinations. And there are a lot of professors and teams of researchers doing amazing work in Cog Sci peeling apart the brain functions to understand music, art, color, spatial/visual acuity, etc. Look at some of the work coming out of the various Media Lab groups- designers, engineers, mathematicians, musicologists, writers.

I will defer to Chris (the true subject matter expert) to expound further on the role of the arts at MIT!

[mtmind]

@MITChris

Because:

• some students who would do well on the tests (and who don’t attend fancy high schools) might not take the tests if we don’t require them, and wouldn’t be able to demonstrate readiness
• when we asked some admits from the last two years to send us scores (after we admitted them), some of them had scored well enough for us, but thought that their scores were too low. disadvantaged students generally can’t afford savvy advising on what scores are good enough for us.

Both of these basically come down to savviness/resources to navigate our educational system.

Given that that overall landscape is mostly test optional (with the glaring exception of the test blind UC system), doesn’t it still come down to whether the student has the “savviness/resources to navigate our educational system?” Only instead of having to decide whether or not submit test scores, the student will have decide whether it makes sense to applying at all.

It’s easy for MIT to say, after the fact, that TO students would have scored “well enough” to submit, but would these same students had even applied if it weren’t for TO? As your own example indicates, they don’t have the savvy to understand what “well enough” means. How will they know it makes sense to even apply?

[Lindagaf]

Thanks so much for posting in this thread @MITChris . I wish everyone would read each post you’ve written here. It makes something seen as opaque much more transparent.

[MITChris]

@mtmind

Given that that overall landscape is mostly test optional (with the glaring exception of the test blind UC system), doesn’t it still come down to whether the student has the “savviness/resources to navigate our educational system?” Only instead of having to decide whether or not submit test scores, the student will have decide whether it makes sense to applying at all.

It’s easy for MIT to say, after the fact, that TO students would have scored “well enough” to submit, but would these same students had even applied if it weren’t for TO? As your own example indicates, they don’t have the savvy to understand what “well enough” means. How will they know it makes sense to even apply?

Yes, it still does require a student to know to take the SAT. But that’s why we went with a requirement — at least it’s clearer and more easily understood than a suspended requirement (we never described ourselves as test optional — we always said that students should take the tests and send us scores, if they could do so safely). Optionality is more confusing than a requirement. If we ever drop the SAT/ACTs, we will go test-free, and it will only be because we think we have developed methods to do without them.

There is a common misunderstanding that removing the SAT requirement makes a place like MIT more accessible. The reason it’s a misunderstanding is that our prime directive is making sure a student is prepared for MIT. It seems people assume that we use the SAT scores to weed out applicants who otherwise looked good, but we don’t; we use the SAT scores to give us confidence in students where we didn’t have enough information to be sure. If a student doesn’t submit the tests, that doesn’t help them demonstrate preparation. They may be able to show that preparation through other means — like very advanced coursework at their school or a local college, or strong AP/IB tests, etc — but those things are (even more) restrictive than the SAT.

[blossom]

Chris, thanks for this very clear (and sensible) explanation.

[GKUnion]

@MITChris Thank you for your participation here. What about students that don’t do well on standardized tests in general. My son doesn’t. He does do very well on exams he can actually study the material for. In terms of demonstrating applied knowledge, he’s exceptional. How would a student like this get through the MIT gauntlet?

[MITChris]

It’s hard to say, everyone being so individual. There are certainly students at MIT who outperform their SAT scores. But the thing is that the first year of MIT is essentially a battery of standard math (and science) tests. Not in the same way the SAT is, of course, but — the math diagnostic, the ASEs (if you want to take them), the midterms and finals for 18.01 and 8.01, which are usually 400 person lectures with a weekly recitation with a grad student, where students learn by struggling through the problem sets on a weekly basis. There are ways around this model (the Concourse alternative first year curriculum, for example), but even those are not applied knowledge in the way I think you’re talking about — it’s still largely traditional pencil-and-paper in a big gym. I definitely wouldn’t have succeeded in the MIT undergraduate environment, with how I learn STEM subjects best. It’s not for everyone.

But again — we’re very much not rank-ordering people by their SAT scores or anything. Holding two applicants equal in terms of the overall assessment of prep, SAT scores themselves don’t hold any additional weight.