[chrisk]

I agree that not having the SAT shields universities from scrutiny and accusations of bias.  Given historic precedent, there is good reason to be suspicious of universities' motives here.  On the other hand, just because something can be reduced to a number doesn't mean that said number is an accurate measure of what you are trying to capture.  In fact, one thing about well measured variables like SAT is you can also measure the effect of factors that contribute to the scores.  There is, to give one example, a very strong correlation between household income and SAT score.





That's about a 400 point (~250 points scaled to 1600) between the highest and lowest family income levels.

Ultimately, I think how someone feels about schools having the increased flexibility that not using test scores affords them probably reflects whether they trust the schools to use that flexibility in a way that they approve or not.

BC

Another issue with test scores that Harvard faced is that Asians score high than other ethnicities. If test scores were weighted heavily, the proportion of Asian students would be even higher than it is currently. Thus, the claims of bias by Asians in the Harvard case.

[chrisk]

I agree that not having the SAT shields universities from scrutiny and accusations of bias.  Given historic precedent, there is good reason to be suspicious of universities' motives here.  On the other hand, just because something can be reduced to a number doesn't mean that said number is an accurate measure of what you are trying to capture.  In fact, one thing about well measured variables like SAT is you can also measure the effect of factors that contribute to the scores.  There is, to give one example, a very strong correlation between household income and SAT score.





That's about a 400 point (~250 points scaled to 1600) between the highest and lowest family income levels.

Ultimately, I think how someone feels about schools having the increased flexibility that not using test scores affords them probably reflects whether they trust the schools to use that flexibility in a way that they approve or not.

BC

Another issue with test scores that Harvard faced is that Asians score high than other ethnicities. If test scores were weighted heavily, the proportion of Asian students would be even higher than it is currently. Thus, the claims of bias by Asians in the Harvard case.