To test or not to test? That is the question that universities all over the US tackled during the onset of the pandemic—and one that has continued to plague them ever since. At the end of February, Yale University offered a response: a reinstatement of the standardized testing requirement.
When I first started thinking about which colleges I wanted to apply to, I remember a college counselor telling me: “Alina, most of these places are still not up for discussion until you get a score higher than at least a 1530 on the SAT.” Even though I was applying during the pandemic, when most universities had test-optional policies, the choice to withhold my scores never seemed available to me. Growing up in the college-obsessed Bombay school system, I was constantly reminded that all of my immediate competitors would be submitting impressive scores. If I wanted to be taken seriously, I would have to match up—simple as that.
As my first year at Yale comes to a close, my world is now far larger than the web of competitive high schools in India that I grew up in. My one-track perspective on the unquestionable value of testing has been colored and injected with much-needed nuance through conversations with my peers. My belief in the institution of standardized testing is no longer a product of blind faith. But even after exposure to opposing perspectives, I still find myself erring on the side of supporting Yale’s requirement for testing.
And I am not alone in this sentiment. Against the backdrop of Old Campus on a chilly March afternoon, I sat across from one of my best friends. She spent her childhood almost exclusively in Colombia; her family moved to the US halfway through the first semester of her sister’s junior year of high school. Her sister, now a student at MIT, aced the SAT and ACT—my friend maintains that submitting her test scores strengthened an application that perhaps would not have made the cut without them. As a fellow international student, I, too, see this story as a testament to the positive attributes of standardized testing.
If universities make the decision to stay test-optional in a post-COVID world, citing commitment to diversity and inclusion, I wonder whether they are in fact disadvantaging the same marginalized students that they claim to be protecting. A study published by Johns Hopkins found that schools that required testing experienced a similar uptick in diversity as those that adopted test-optional policies, dismissing the argument that Yale is abandoning its dedication to building a diverse class through this policy. In fact, Yale’s commitment to considering test scores in the context of each applicant’s background and high school might indicate the very opposite—a desire to prioritize inclusion rather than disregard it.
In conversations with friends at Yale who are FGLI, I learned that most of them were likewise in support of reinstating the testing requirement. They viewed these requirements as an opportunity to present their academic excellence in the context of their background and high school, rather than in comparison to all Yale applicants. Furthermore, they explained, other parts of the admissions process, like personal essays, recommendation letters, and extracurricular activities, have even greater disparities across race and class. These differences arise largely because these ‘qualitative’ measures can rely heavily on funding, such that these gaps far outstrip those that result from standardized testing.
Ultimately, the onus is on admissions officers, not only to build a diverse student body, but also to ensure that the students they recruit can keep up with the rigor of the institution. There is good reason for admissions officers to ensure that they admit students who show the potential that a Yale education demands. Research studies have found that test scores are better indicators of success in college than high school grades. In an interview with the YaleNews, Jeremiah Quinlan, Dean of Yale Undergraduate Admissions, mentioned that “students with higher scores have been more likely to have higher Yale GPAs,” and that “test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s performance in Yale courses.”
I do not mean to suggest that the standardized testing system itself is flawless. The accessibility of fee waivers should be expanded, and providing more test dates and centers would make a world of difference. Even with those reforms slowly emerging, we are a long way from leveling the playing field in terms of the education and resources available to low-income students, and my support of Yale’s policy in no way is meant to diminish my belief in the importance of efforts to bridge these gaps.
Conversations surrounding Yale’s efforts to prioritize diversity and inclusion are essential in order to create the academic and social landscape that Yale envisions for itself—an environment in which people from all walks of life can thrive. Standardized testing policies form a small part of these efforts. When a college touts the student they accepted from an obscure rural town, or when the dean of a university makes a public announcement about the importance of inclusion, these hollow actions do not fulfill the institution’s duty to inclusion. Their obligation far exceeds these marketing techniques. Universities must make space for everybody, and diversity makes everyone stronger. A university’s commitment to that idea extends far beyond its standardized testing policy.
