I've been following recent developments at Dartmouth College closely for a couple of different reasons. Their current president, Sian Beilock, was ours for six years. Their Middle East Dialogues initiative, launched through a collaborative effort by faculty in the Jewish Studies and Middle Eastern Studies programs, has fostered
I have no strong opinion on what would be the best admissions strategy for schools like Dartmouth, but I think your discussion elides one relevant statistical consideration. In particular, test scores are noisy signals of underlying "ability" or "testiness". In such circumstances, the average test score of an individual's group is relevant to estimating their true "testiness" conditional on their test score. You - and many admissions officers - conclude that, among two students that both score 1400 on a max-1600 test, the kid from a disadvantaged background has more latent ability than the one from an advantaged one. Maybe, if you feel that the talent is undeveloped, but from the standpoint of the noisy test, you'd have to conclude the opposite, i.e., the kid from the disadvantaged background is more likely to have had a lucky score and that their "true score" is lower than that of the wealthier kid.
I think the the idea that requiring tests scores is paternalistic is a little ridiculous. A college sets all sorts of requirements that students must meet for the application process and judges applications on criteria that it alone sets.
Transparency about how it weighs scores based on student background through a few examples can help get more applications if the concern is that fewer students from lower class backgrounds will apply if they are required to submit scores.
I have no strong opinion on what would be the best admissions strategy for schools like Dartmouth, but I think your discussion elides one relevant statistical consideration. In particular, test scores are noisy signals of underlying "ability" or "testiness". In such circumstances, the average test score of an individual's group is relevant to estimating their true "testiness" conditional on their test score. You - and many admissions officers - conclude that, among two students that both score 1400 on a max-1600 test, the kid from a disadvantaged background has more latent ability than the one from an advantaged one. Maybe, if you feel that the talent is undeveloped, but from the standpoint of the noisy test, you'd have to conclude the opposite, i.e., the kid from the disadvantaged background is more likely to have had a lucky score and that their "true score" is lower than that of the wealthier kid.
Link broken, post again?
This is extremely interesting and is in line with reporting from the NY times in this podcast episode: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/17/podcasts/the-daily/the-war-on-the-sat.html
I think the the idea that requiring tests scores is paternalistic is a little ridiculous. A college sets all sorts of requirements that students must meet for the application process and judges applications on criteria that it alone sets.
Transparency about how it weighs scores based on student background through a few examples can help get more applications if the concern is that fewer students from lower class backgrounds will apply if they are required to submit scores.