This is an excellent overview and really sums up why I’m in favor of TO for top schools. If it offers even a slightly better chance to kids who are currently under represented at these schools I’m all for it - even if it could slightly disadvantage my own kids (because, frankly, they are lucky enough as it is and aren’t entitled to an elite college admission on top of that).
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Taking your logic a step further, wouldn’t you also support getting rid of all admission criteria so that those kids would have even a better chance?
We obviously disagree on this point and that is fine. I can see both sides. Regardless of what criteria is selected it will always somewhat favor kids from wealthier families who have many advantages. I don’t think there is a way around that. Anecdotally, more kids from lower SES household applied to elite schools this year (based on a few articles I read and no hard stats around it so it has to be taken with a grain of salt) and that is, in my view, good. So far as who will be admitted, I have no idea. I know this year has been brutally difficult in terms of admissions to elite schools - I have several friends whose kids have been waitlisted or rejected at schools they ordinarily would have had a strong chance at due to the crazy level of competition (all their kids were test submitters).
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I don’t see that as “a step further.” I see it as jumping off the cliff or falling on the floor in a tantrum.
Neither the SAT nor ACT have proven to be as good of predictors as other things like GPA, etc. No one has advocated throwing out the good predictors.
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Of course it’s logical step forward. The point made by @Thorsmom66 was that without test scores some underrepresented kids would have a better chance of admissions. My point is if schools get rid of the other criteria, those same kids would have an even better chance. They’re disadvanged not only by the tests, but also by the other elements of college admissions. Do you agree?
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Of course low SES kids are disadvantaged - period. I doubt anyone questions that.
But we’re talking about college and those admitted still have to be able to prove they can do the work to graduate. There are other ways than SAT/ACT to do this - ways that show a better correlation to success.
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If fair representation is the goal, then logically their best representation would be achieved if all admission criteria were removed since all such criteria are barriers to these underrepresented kids. Which one of these criteria is a better predictor is irrelevant if the goal is better representation.
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Not using my logic.
ETA: Any workplace would also seemingly want to find the best predictors of who is likely to stay/succeed/etc, and would drop those that aren’t. I’m not so sure why colleges would be any different.
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Can we agree that this thread has jumped the shark?
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Removing one criterion among about 10 and using zero criterion is totally different, but I think (hope) you know that.
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Of course it will be different. The composition of a college’s student body will be different and more reflective of the population at large if we remove any, or all, of the other criteria. If we eliminate essays, for example, the underrepresented group will be better represented. If we eliminate HS transcripts, the underrepresented group will be better represented. So on and so forth. The more we eliminate, the better the representation.
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I suspect readers do anyway - or anyone who has hired for a job.
If not, nothing is going to change anyone’s mind, so I agree that this part of the argument has been stated.
Going TO for a school is still terrific IMO, and can open the school up to more successful candidates than they otherwise might have found. They can still pick among those submitting test scores if they feel that showcases their ability the best.
Picking students randomly from all rosters among high schools would be as effective as businesses doing the same.
You need to consider the benefits/costs of each individual criteria. There have been plenty of studies and reports about what happens when a college goes test optional since test optional had been implemented at ~1000 colleges prior to COVID. When tests are removed, very little predictive ability is lost beyond the many available remaining criteria used at the “top schools” mentioned in the original post. This many remaining criteria is more than just HS GPA in isolation. Test scores are also more correlated with income than most other criteria. So the benefits may be signicicant and costs small.
There are far less information about making other criteria optional, which makes a benefit/costs review more complicated. However, all the information that I’ve seen suggests HSGPA far less correlated with income than scores. Some studies find a negligible correlation. For example, For example, table 1 of the the study at https://cshe.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/publications/rops.geiser._sat_6.13.07.pdf 1 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
In addition to be less correlated with income, far more predictive ability is probably going to be lost if a test optional college also goes transcript optional. I’ve never seen a study that reviewed considering essays + LORs + .EC/awards, … but not transcript or scores since no colleges use this admission system. However, the little information that is available suggests a huge loss in predictive ability. For example, the previously referenced Ithaca study found the following predictive power for cumulative GPA:
Variance in Cumulative GPA Explained By
Demographics – 8% of variance explained
Demographics + Transcript* — 43% of variance explained
Demographics + Transcript* + Scores – 44% of variance explained
*Transcript includes GPA + Strength of Schedule + # AP Credits
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There are very, very good reasons that slippery slope arguments appear in lists of logical fallacies.
(Remember, as pointed out many, many times upthread, going TO has exactly the result that @Thorsmom66 said they desire. That connection has not been demonstrated for “all admission criteria”. Therefore, your implication is specious anyway.)
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We disagreed on the predictive powers of various criteria in prior discussions so there’s no point to rehash them. However, predictability isn’t even germaine to the discussion today of whether the elimination of any other admission criterion (or making it optional) will help increase the representation of underrepresented groups. Taking HS transcript as an example, if it’s eliminated (or made optional), would the change help increase the representation of underrepresented groups? Even using your correlation numbers (which I believe underestimate the correlation of income with HSGPA), the correlation is positve, meaning that lower income is correlated with poorer HS GPA. A lower income student would be “penalized” with HS transcript than without. If the only goal is to increase representation of underrepresented groups, elimination of HS transcripts (or making them optional) would help achieve that goal. Whether that’s desirable or not is a separate issue. The argument is along the same line for the other criteria.
I’m not sure where you think the logical fallacy is. @Thorsmom66’s point is that she supports TO policy because it increases the representation of underrepresented groups, so basing on her logic, making any other criterion that disadvantages underrepresented groups disappear or optional would also be helpful, would it not?
Seems to me many/most colleges have goals of having students who succeed and want to increase underrepresented groups, so are tweaking accordingly.
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The whole point of my post was you need to compare benefits (underrepresented group increase in this example) and costs (predictive power lost in this example) to make nearly any decision, so the cost is absolutely relevant. If you instead only look at whether there is a non-zero benefit to a specific criteria, without considering the magnitude of that benefit or considering costs, then the results will have little relevance to anything in the real world.
For example, if the only goal is increasing representation of underrpresented groups, a far more effective option would be to look at that criteria directly. College of the Ozarks requires >90% of the class must demonstrate financial need. If Harvard implemented the same policy, then they’d have a much larger portion lower income. However, I don’t expect them to do so, because the benefit to cost ratio would be very poor. The benefit to cost ratio is completely different for going test optional and going test + transcript optional, so I also don’t expect any selective colleges to do the latter.
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Here’s the whole quote that I responded to:
Where did it say anything about cost? And where did I claim that there would be no cost?
There are certain assumptions about rational decision makers considering both the magnitude of benefits and the magnitude of costs/consequences, even if both aren’t explicitly repeated in every post. For example, it’s currently a little chilly in my house, so I might say that I’m in favor of increasing the temperature of my home. However, that does not mean that I’d be in favor of all activities that increase the temperature by >0 degrees, regardless of cost/consequences, even though I did not explicitly mention costs/consequences in the statement. Burning down my house would certainly increase temperature, yet I would not be in favor of burning down my house… the benefit to cost ratio would be very poor.
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