(04-11-2024, 01:00 PM)Mick Wrote: UT-Austin announced last month that they will be required, for the purposes of program placement.
Purdue reinstated them as well. North Carolina is considering it. University of Tennessee brought it back.
University of California and CalTech have indicated interest in establishing an alternative system to the standardized tests and do not intend to reinstate the tests. The LA Times called on the UC system to reconsider their position. Interestingly, UC rejected standardized tests but decided to retain essays in spite of the fact that a Stanford study indicated that essays are closely correlated to family income.
Efforts to improve DEI are fraught with the same problems as other fields. For example, environmentalism led us to change out landscapes for turf on the premise that turf doesn't use water, but then we realized that turf doesn't allow infiltration of rainwater, leading more rainwater to collect pollutants on its way to being diverted to the ocean. That's not to say that efforts at improving DEI or efforts to improve the environment are worthless. Just saying that I agree with the point in the post above that we need to be aware of the downsides to any replacement policy Stanford puts in place to evaluate the merits of kids' applications.