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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

SAT Optional: The Correct Answer

With pricey tutors who teach you to game the system and a strong correlation between income  and higher scores (average score rises with every $20,000 of additional family income), the SAT is flawed, and its prestige is falling as the ACT and other options rise in popularity. This week, the College Board announced that it will try to address these problems through scrapping the writing section, focusing on “evidence-based reading and writing,” not penalizing incorrect answers and offering free online test-prep, spurning high-level conversations about the potential efficacy of these changes and the true merit of standardized testing.

Despite these changes, privileged students will still have an unfair leg-up in the testing process and a four-hour test will not always work for all students, regardless of how “college-ready” they are. We must reevaluate how we at Middlebury view testing in the admissions process.

We are already testing-flexible, allowing students to submit either the ACT, the SAT or three SAT IIs in different areas of study. Moreover, we advertise on our website that we are aware of the failings of standardized testing in the admissions process, listing socioeconomic factors, test prep and schooling as outside influences that could change scores.

If we are already discounting the importance of these tests, why are we requiring testing at all? Peer institutions including Bowdoin, Holy Cross, Pitzer and Smith have all elected to be test-optional, finding the same flaws with testing that we account for in our admissions process.

According to the Council for Aid to Education, GPA is across the board a better predictor of college success, even when little is known about a student’s high school, and correlates less with income. GPA shows how hard a student is willing to work, particularly when put into the context of their peers.

After becoming test-optional, Wake Forest found that diversity in the applicant pool rose after they became test optional. A study by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling found that the students not likely to not submit their scores are minorities, women, first generation applicants, Pell Grant recipients and students with learning differences. As we reevaluate our brand and try to attract a wider swath of applicants, it appears becoming test-optional reaches the populations we are working to bring in.

Of course becoming testing-optional limits the amount of information our admissions readers receive about an applicant, but does a four-digit number really reveal as much as we are looking for? We must, therefore, compensate for this dearth of information with a more comprehensive application.

Our current supplement is basic. It asks if you would like to be a Feb., if you are a legacy and what activities and majors you are thinking about. Some of our peer institutions are far more creative. Tufts’ supplement has even helped boost the schools image when the supplement question, “What does #YOLO mean to you?” made national news this summer. Tufts applicants may choose from six essay prompts in an attempt to allow students to show off their best side, from celebrating the role sports plays in their lives to responding to a Virginia Woolf quote through a medium of their choice, with slam poetry, a video, or prose as suggested forms.

An innovative supplement would allow applicants to play to their strengths and highlight what they will bring to the table if accepted to Middlebury, giving us a more holistic view of whom we are admitting. Furthermore, adding a supplement will limit students applying to students who truly want to be here, not just students who throw in an application because it requires minimal effort. This may decrease the applicant pool, but that will only free up capacity within Admissions to spend more time on these additional materials.

While we commend Middlebury for looking outside the on-site interview model as to not disadvantage students who cannot visit, our current model is a missed opportunity with little weight given during the admissions process. We should also find a way to bolster our alumni interview process into something admissions officers can truly use. None of the members of our Editorial Board remember a meaningful alumni interview; this is not a reflection on the people we have interviewing students, rather a reflection of the support Middlebury provides. We can strengthen these interviews by providing more rigorous training or giving a list of questions that sparks productive conversations or solicits the critical engagement that we want from our students in a classroom.

If we are trying to foster a diverse community in all senses of the word, we need to understand that people’s personalities cannot be confined to a bubble filled in with a No. 2 pencil. For some students, testing comes naturally, and by all means they should be able to show that off. But for other students, the application process should reflect the community we foster once they are admitted to Middlebury, one that celebrates an array of talents and skills. A thoughtful supplement that highlights what we value as a community and a more informative interview process could add the additional insight that the Common App cannot provide and attract a student body that brings more to the table than a number.

 Artwork by NOLAN ELLSWORTH


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