<p>Last week Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts made an admissions policy decision to make the SAT optional for applicants. This makes WPI the first major science and technology college to do so. I have the long held opinion that the SAT is fundamentally flawed, but I'll withhold judgment on WPI's action for now. Reportedly WPI intends to undertake a study to compare the performance of non-SAT admits versus the sophomores and upperclassmen/women who took the test.</p>
<p>Does MIT require the SAT? What about Cal Tech or Georgia Tech? I seem to recall that neither Columbia School of Engineering or Columbia College officially required the SAT.</p>
<p>It'll be interesting to see if this trend spreads, since reliance on the SAT tends to erode in sectors. It's hard, for example, to find an LAC in the Northeast outside the top-20 that still requires standardized test scores; with recent changes from a number of schools, it's down to just a handful or less. Wonder if the tech-oriented schools are next?</p>
<p>Danas, but I believe that you will find, in the case of WPI, the admit rate stats can be quite misleading. WPI students are highly motivated and I believe that the college fact page states that the average GPA of incoming freshmen is 3.7. I would guess that concerning applicants, WPI has significant overlap with MIT and Harvard; and it's no jump of faith to believe that if admitted to the two Cambridge schools, you'd likely be accepted to WPI as well.</p>
<p>It would be interesting to see if by virtue of this policy WPI 'enrolls' more low SAT students or not. For survey purposes they can always ask the SAT score after a student has matriculated.</p>
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It would be interesting to see if by virtue of this policy WPI 'enrolls' more low SAT students or not.
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I think little will change in this regard. The school probably gets a good number of decent scorers and accepts them. Perhaps many are smart kids whose GPAs are not terribly good or who didn’t exactly broker peace in the Middle East. I think the change will be positive for WPI overall because it merely opens WPI's doors to a wider array of students, some of whom will have no SAT but who will be obviously talented. WPI may still suggest students submit SAT scores, while not requiring them.</p>
<p>The only issue I have with these tests are that they are too expensive. You get a kid taking the SAT and a handful of SAT II’s, and you are out of a nice little chunk of money (not to mention the cost of AP tests).</p>
<p>I happen to think a rigidly standardized component, like the SAT, has a place in college admissions. It is a way for colleges to see how students compare, in a few narrow aspects, to all other students. I also think some groups are at a cultural disadvantage in taking the test, especially blacks and Hispanics-- groups for which English is often the primary language at home, but which brand of English is too different from the “standard” to allow the sort of thinking required to do well, and too similar to force students to change. Contrary to popular belief, there is English in math, and a mastery of this language, whether culturally ingrained or the result of deliberate and overwhelming effort, is critical to a superior performance on the SAT.</p>
<p>I wonder if they are reacting to getting a lot of kids with high test scores, especially in the quantitative exams, who turn out to be not very fluent (or interested in) English/language skills.
My husband is a WPI grad school alum and he received the letter from WPI about this change. They pointed out that the SAT's have been their least effective predictor of college success.
Students opting out of the SAT will submit a portfolio of work for evlauation. Accepted students will still have to submit the SAT before they enroll.</p>
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decision to make the SAT optional for applicants. This makes WPI the first major science and technology college to do so.
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<p>WPI is not a "major" science and technology college, it has no national draw nor much overlap with the elites. Contrary to what the other poster implied, it does not win any cross-admits from Harvard and MIT, and rejected applicants who had a shot at those rarely end up at WPI. If it ever did have an overlap, it must have been decimated in recent years by Harvard's push to expand engineering, the opening of Olin institute, the increased prestige of Tufts, and the awarding of a Nobel Prize to UMass biologist Craig Mello for one of the biggest discoveries of the last 20 years.</p>
<p>I don't know what led to WPI's decision, but re: post #10, they must get a lot of Southeast Asian students from the surrounding area. It could be that verbal SAT is low for that population, or that (being very poor and from some high-crime ghettoes) SAT in general is low. </p>
<p>I hope they run better regressions than the other schools that claimed no effect of SATs on results. Harvard, which has run plenty of its own studies, found that very high SAT scores are correlated with magna and summa degrees. That is the more correct type of analysis to make; looking for linear increments in grades from jumps in SAT is useless, but looking at the representation of higher or lower SAT scorers at the extremes of the college outcomes is much more meaningful.</p>