This article from UC Berkeley mathematics professor Zvezdelina Stankova raises a much larger question than whether universities should bring back the SAT.
What should qualify someone for admission to a university in the first place?
My answer is straightforward: academic accomplishment, academic preparation, and the demonstrated ability to succeed at the level of work the institution requires. That should apply to Berkeley, a regional public university, a private university, or virtually any institution granting academic degrees. Schools should have standards. Period.
Universities can and should care about expanding opportunity. They can consider socioeconomic circumstances, first-generation status, and the many obstacles students may have faced before applying. But those considerations should provide context for academic achievement, not replace it.
The concern raised in this article is what happens when we move too far in the other direction. Stankova describes students entering Berkeley calculus who are years behind in mathematics. She also presents diagnostic data showing a substantial decline in calculus readiness following the move to test-blind admissions. At the same time, highly accomplished students with extensive advanced coursework can still be denied admission.
At some point, we have to be willing to ask an uncomfortable question.
If demonstrated academic ability is becoming less important in admissions decisions because institutions are prioritizing political, social, or institutional objectives, then what exactly does admission represent?
A university is not doing a student a favor by admitting that student into coursework for which he or she is badly unprepared. That may improve an admissions statistic, but it does not necessarily improve educational opportunity. Conversely, if one applicant has demonstrated the academic preparation to succeed and another has not, academic institutions should need a very compelling reason to disregard that difference.
This should not be controversial.
Standards are not barriers to education; standards are part of what gives education value. Abandoning imperfect academic measurements is very different from allowing academic readiness itself to become secondary.
Universities should absolutely work to create opportunity for students from every background. But opportunity without preparation is not equity, and lowering the importance of academic accomplishment does not strengthen higher education.
The mission should be to help more students reach the standard, not to make the standard irrelevant.
Article: https://lnkd.in/ggCMpNdt