Reinstating our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles

> the idea that my success could be predicted by my knowledge of geometry and vocabulary words is laughable.

You really should look into the g-factor research. This isn't about knowledge, but rather performance. It turns out that your performance on geometry and vocabulary tests is highly correlated with your performance on tests in such disparate fields as Classics and Music:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)#Cogni...

The crazy result in general intelligence is that your performance in all these areas is highly correlated, and incredibly correlated with career success:

> "Research indicates that tests of g are the best single predictors of job performance, with an average validity coefficient of .55 across several meta-analyses of studies based on supervisor ratings and job samples."

I'm grateful for the SAT/ACT being present when I was in high school(HS). Without it I might not have a decent education, mostly b/c I was drifting along and paying little attention to life.

Junior year I had high PSAT scores and received letters from various universities expressing interest. Yet I hadn't even considered what I would do after HS. I was amazed to see anyone expressing interest, decided it was a fluke and dropped it all in the trash.

Next year I scored high on the SAT and unexpectedly received multiple offers for full scholarships, room and board et al from universities. I asked around and realized my peers had been applying to colleges for months while I, the quintessential apostle of Lao Tzu (OK, I'm lazy!), had done absolutely nothing.

I hesitated to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially when there were several. I picked one and was off to college. My Dad was pleased to get off the hook for college costs, Mom was proud, but I mostly felt sorry for friends who had to work hard to get into university.

tl;dr: PSAT and SAT made getting into college easy for me and I am thankful.

They might be the least gameable, but this is kind of a “bare minimum” for diversity/equity practices. It is the cheapest way to get little bit of reliable signal.

Because let's be clear about the standardized test situation. Test takers had time to take the test, they weren't doing work on the side for their parents instead to make ends meet. They had transportation to the test location, they were able to pay the fees, and they were not being discouraged from college as “we can never afford that, I’m sorry.”

Standardized tests themselves have mostly tested not IQ or domain knowledge, but how anxious you are taking tests. This does predict later academic performance, sure, but to say that this anxiety is disconnected from demographics sounds like a rather strong claim. Instead you have that it is more disconnected than GPA and essays and extracurriculars which is not saying much.

If you want to be serious about diversity and equity, you invest some actual cash into it... The easiest way is talent scouting, you send people (trained, you can reduce bias) to underrepresented communities and allow folks there to interview with them. My wife worked at place that did this, it sounds financially intractable at first but it scales to whatever budget you want to put into it... Her place would send folks out to like Singapore as well as to inner city schools. But the point is that you have to leave the door open to the people who can come to you, but you also go to the people who cannot.

(This is also a startup idea... The reason the schools don't send out their best is that there are too many colleges, the reason the colleges don't canvas the schools that there are too many schools, these are obviously inverse problems that could cancel each other out in the appropriate sort of network, the recruiters just need to be common to both. The problem is getting people to pay for it—the schools who you want most are precisely the underfunded ones that cannot pay you, the colleges meanwhile are less willing to go in on these sorts of weird experiments, they, they have an admissions department already. So the idea has a dangerous scope creep where you want to also start a college so that you can dogfood... Not a degree-granting educational institution in itself, maybe, but just a “first year at college” school which sells its students to other top colleges. Obviously that's a much riskier investment for VCs.)

That site is a mess. Shows a chart where the average IQ is 82, links to a page saying the average IQ is 100 (which is the original design). Also cites a eugenicist and thinks that worthy of a passing footnote. Frankly, I wouldn't trust anything I read there.