MIT reinstates its SAT/ACT requirement

A lot has been written about standardized testing, with some hoping that the SAT/ACT will no longer be required for colleges.  Elite colleges made these tests optional during COVID.  The question is: will that last?  This is an academic question for some, but for those with children who will be applying to college soon, this is a very concrete issue.  

In the current environment, to submit or not submit test scores is a matter of strategy.  Accordingly to the College Board, only 43% of applicants submitted scores in the applications submitted for the first year college students who entered college in 2021.  More importantly, those submitting scores were not random.  As summarized in this Inside Higher Ed article, it looks like:

Reporting was "far higher … among applicants living in more affluent communities, as defined by local median household income in applicants’ local ZIP codes."

Reporting rates "were highest in several Southern and Midwestern states and lowest in several Northeastern and Western states."

Underrepresented minority students and first-generation students were less likely to report than were other students.

While test scores declined for all groups, "more selective member institutions, both public and private, more often received test scores with applications than did less selective colleges."

"Individual applicants sometimes employed different test score reporting strategies across their various applications," the report said. "Specifically, nearly one in four (24 percent) of applicants reported scores in some, but not all, of their applications (up from 4 percent last season)

Given this state of play, it is notable that MIT has announced that it will again require SAT/ACT scores of applicants.  I encourage you to read their entire post to understand their explanation, by clicking here.  

MIT has concluded that, after reviewing data that has not been publicly released, it can better ensure that its admitted students can handle the rigors of their demanding curriculum if they can look at test scores among other criteria.  

Here is a summary of what they had to say:

To briefly summarize a great deal of careful research:  

• our ability to accurately predict student academic success at MIT⁠02 
  is significantly improved by considering standardized testing — especially in mathematics — alongside other factors 
• some standardized exams besides the SAT/ACT can help us evaluate readiness, but access to these other exams is generally more socioeconomically restricted⁠03 relative to the SAT/ACT
• as a result, not having SATs/ACT scores to consider tends to raise socioeconomic barriers to demonstrating readiness for our education,⁠04 relative to having them, given these other inequalities

What do you think?  Should Yale follow MIT?  What does this say for the test-optional era?  Anything?