MIT suspending SAT/ACT requirement for next application cycle

The purpose of standardized testing is the standardized part.

It's a convenient way to compare students from different schools. The per school graduation exams have the benefit of allowing customization on a per school (per class, even) basis. This customization is one of the good things about the US education system, IMO. We are not like Germany, with the track set for the student (Gymnasium vs trade school) at middle school age, nor are we like India, China, and Japan (single extremely high stakes test).

US schooling is uneven. Some of the schools are very good (well funded private, religious schools with a focus on schooling instead of dogma, public schools in wealthy areas). Some are terrible (public schools in poor areas, public schools in cities).

Standardized testing, when viewed from one angle, makes the world more even: the test "doesn't care" (debated) what race you are, the wealth of your parents, etc. It "objectively" (debated) measures aptitude, giving equal opportunity to all.

I'm fairly sympathetic to that view, and I'm also skeptical that removing the standardized testing requirements will lead to more equality. Standardized testing seems like the method least susceptible to rigging by rich parents, what will they replace it with that is fairer?

I thought the SATs were similar to the A Levels. What's the difference?

One question on my mind (as someone who has a master's degree and engineering degree and has never taken the ACT/SAT) is how kids will go about showing pure intellectual merit?

Like let's say you grow up ok but you can't really afford to join the ski club or for a tutor and maybe you work in the evenings but you crush the SAT/ACT because you're incredibly intelligent. How will universities like MIT take that into account? If we're talking about merit - boy that sure speaks of merit to me compared to a laundry list of clubs, activities, and organizations that the kids with hyper-dedicated parents or lots of money have on their applications.

I'll also say, I didn't take either of these tests and came from a family where to this day I'm still the only one to attend college, but if I had taken the SAT or ACT and scored remarkably well - I think that would have opened doors I didn't even know exist. High school counselor ideally would have noticed a high score and helped with applications.

I don't like these tests but I have to imagine a subset of the population uses them to great effect. Like many things, it seems, I bet that removal of these tests will result in bifurcation in the education system, or will wind up hurting poorer students (while making the middle extremely competitive).

Anyway. There are so many problems with the university system, starting with using universities to train workers, that it's difficult to feel emotion anymore around the issue because it's so overwhelming.

-edit-

For what it's worth I don't know if the SAT/ACT are a good show of intellect. And these tests can be effectively gamed - not just illegally as we saw with the recent scandal but with tutors and test prep.

-edit 2-

Many students who are intelligent but grow up poor have a difficult time in universities, especially when they don't get to take the same classes as their peers did in high school. I know I'm probably an average student, but when I went to my calculus classes after being out of high school for around 5 years I could grasp how to do derivatives and their meaning, but couldn't understand the log functions or trigonometry. So I'd do most of the homework and take the quizzes, then bomb the exams when these concepts came into play. I felt miserable and I didn't know how to study or how to even really get help - I didn't even have a concept of what I didn't know. I just thought I was dumb. It took 3 tries but I eventually got enough help and practice (thanks Khan Academy and others) to make it through, graduate, and go on to do other things.

Fortunately I had training in resilience from the military. What about that kid who grows up crushes a standardized test and fails a class and then thinks that they're stupid and they don't know how to ask for help or can't afford tutoring? Those kids maybe they fail out, or maybe they have mediocre grades so when they go to try and get a job they're competing against 3.8s with tons of on-campus activities. Yet again perpetuating the cycle of getting dumped on. Needs lots of luck or persistence to break the cycle.

Standardized national exams on proficiency in math, languages, science, etc... are very different from IQ tests and only somewhat correlated with IQ, being instead much more strongly correlated with consciensciousness, and generally how good of a student you are and will be.

> it is ridiculous that we don't have a single commonly used standardized-exam that evaluates proficiency and expertise in the core curriculum.

We, for decades until this year, had a single commonly used set, of which different institutions mandated (or accepted as one of several alternatives) different subsets, the SAT Subject Tests (formerly SAT II, formerly Acheivement Tests.) Like the SAT itself, they've bee questioned for a while, and the COVID-19 pandemic on top of that led to their widespread abandonment and, as of this year, discontinuation.