Anybody cheering the exclusion of some test or other, because it was a pain to study for in high school, is simply not noticing the frog-boiling secondary effects going on. Every bit of emphasis taken out of objective results mean more advantage for smooth talking, photogenic, well-connected people.

Yes, some misguided parents waste thousands of dollars on SAT courses. But students can also prep using the $20 official book, which is what I did, and what I still regard as the best option. Even if money helps incrementally for tests, it helps for everything else even more. International volunteer work? An inspiring (i.e. college counselor approved) essay? Recommendation letters from authoritative people? Anything that requires equipment, like computer labs or robotics? It all costs money -- and in many cases literally measures nothing besides how much money you have.

I used to think the SATs were fair. Until I found out how much money was being spent on SAT prep. And those expensive prep courses had the potential to increase scores over 100 points.

I took the recommended SAT prep course through my high school. It was 2 weekends of going over material that might be on the exam and a workbook recommended by The College Board. Imagine my surprise going to university and meeting students much richer than I who had multi year SAT prep courses with actual exam questions!

This is indeed a strange decision for MIT. The conventional wisdom has long been that the SAT subject tests are MORE predictive of future success at MIT, because the influence of test prep, cramming, test coaches, etc. is minimal for the subject tests. While there are reports of people raising their scores artificially on the non-subject tests by hundreds of points through these short-term methods, the subjects tests have long had a reputation as being more representative of what you really know.

A number of comments here seem to be confusing SAT subject tests, which are domain-specific tests about subjects like biology, with the "standard" SAT. It's only the former that MIT is dropping from consideration in admissions:

> We will continue to require the SAT or the ACT, because our research has shown these tests, in combination with a student’s high school grades and coursework, are predictive of success in our challenging curriculum.

Note to those who haven't been in high school for some time: these aren't the main test. The main test still gets considered (in addition to your parents' money)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT_Subject_Tests

I'm sure that I will get in trouble for this but...

The SAT/ACT system is corrupt. It's plain an simple. Follow the money. It's as simple as that. The root of most issues involve simple economics. (Maybe a little broad of a statement, so take it with a grain of salt, but certainly applies in this case.)

The tests are built on revenue from the taking the tests and industry selling you prep material. I don't have time to find the article but the SAT organization got busted a while back for charging different prices for different zip codes.

Although I can't prove it, but I'm sure there were kickback for universities that used the tests. It's a little unsubstantiated claim but we already know you can bribe your way into to school. (The Rick Singer debacle) Why wouldn't these "Testing" companies be doing the same.

Memorizing a method/strategy to take test is a waste of time and national resources.

Earlier this year, Caltech made the decision to eliminate the SAT subject tests: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/caltech-eliminate-require...

Slightly unrelated but could be useful to any HS seniors here: My n=1 study method got me a 1520. I would study for the SAT in a dark room, with horror movie music or war sound effects playing in earbuds, while planking. For every incorrect answer, I'd do 10 pushups or 3 pull-ups (can adapt to your own level). Rationale was that if I could do well in the worst conditions possible, then I'd do better sitting in a quiet room.

I'm a pretty bad student also, I had like a 3 GPA.

"And last, but certainly not least: I know we are making this announcement during the COVID-19 pandemic. We had already been planning to make this change, and decided to announce as soon as possible in part because we wanted to make sure no one was spending more time or energy studying for tests they wouldn’t have to take for us, especially during a public health emergency. "

Riiiiiiiight. 'Cuz nobody that applies to MIT ever applies to a back-up school. You know, just in case they don't get accepted. I've heard that can happen.

The SAT subject tests just felt like a joke to me anyways. My high school was a public high school in Singapore, a country generally considered to have great education. With a generally good mastery of the normal high school curriculum, these tests were considered very easy. Pretty much all my friends and I got 800 out of 800 for all the subject tests. And these perfect scores ended up not mattering that much in college admissions anyways.

The normal SAT I tests, on the other hand, seemed to require more critical thinking, higher reading comprehension and reasoning skills, skills that are sorely needed in an age of blatant misinformation. These are much harder to score well, which is why so many people spend a lot studying for them. Not so much for the SAT subject tests.

In my home country Iran we had the equivalent of SAT general and subject tests. I did pretty poorly in general tests, but the subject tests saved me (near perfect scores in physics and math) and opened the door for me to go to a good university in my country. Just to get a clear understanding of my financials, I was living off 1$ per month at that time which was just enough to buy heavily subsidized food stamps in college. I ended up graduating with a PhD degree and worked at several top companies in the US later. This seems to me like a case of a cure that is worse than the disease.

To be fair, the SAT is pretty useless when you have enough applicants with 99 percentile scores that you can fill your class multiple times over. It was never a differentiator.

If they ever extend this to the SAT / ACT itself (and not just the subject tests) I will have lost a lot of respect for MIT.

A goal of higher education is to give the opportunity to people who will likely make the best use of the education, and have the greatest chance of succeeding given their preparation. Spots at top colleges are a limited resource. There has to be a selection function, and an unbiased test that asks questions about math, reading comprehension, etc. is as close as you're going to get.

The SAT, regardless of your opinion of whether it exacerbates or merely reflects inequities in the system, is a very strong indicator of whether a person has the preparation to succeed at university. You cannot get around that fact.

Whether high-priced prep courses or studying out of a book from the library help you pass the test, the person doing either of those things has gotten education and skills along the way. God forbid you consider the idea that someone actually learned something even though the test was standardized. And the fact that even poor families will pay to put their kids through test prep courses suggests they see value in it. It's not like they're paying to be given instructions on how to cheat the system.

People who want to water down the admissions criteria to be a social equalizer ought not mask their motives by saying that the test is flawed. The test is perfectly fine, and it reflects people's preparation and abilities to succeed at university. If you want to change the outcome, change the inputs -- and work on getting more people qualified to pass that test.

Most of this is to obscure their admission criteria. Harvard has come under fire for actively discriminating against Asian applicants. By removing a standard test, these colleges can actively discriminate whilst making it more difficult to prove admissions bias from a numerical and arguably more objective standard.

The majority of comments in this thread are an abject demonstration of a failure in reading comprehension.

If only we had a test for that...

These are the tests that are no longer being considered: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT_Subject_Tests. They are not "the SAT".

It makes intuitive sense to me that MIT wouldn't find these useful. They test subjects that students study in school. They're tests of knowledge, and have multiple choice questions like "One purpose of the Marshall Plan of 1948 was to..."

As far as I know, everyone's score on these tests correlated extremely well with 1) their school grade in the relevant course 2) the relevant Advanced Placement test.

Honestly welcome change. The SAT Subject tests (at least for people around me in HS) were always considered as a much easier test you'd take after the AP for that very same subject. I just equated it to another way for collegeboard to get money especially since the questions were way more straightforward than AP. I am slightly concerned about what this means for schools where AP classes are not offered (I imagine SAT Subject tests presented the most accessible opportunity for these students to demonstrate their aptitude in a subject).

EDIT: changed wording in response to child comment.

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These were called "Achievement Tests" in the early 90s, and man, they were much harder than the SAT. If the current "Subject Tests" approximate their level of difficulty, then it's a clear mistake for MIT to disregard these datapoints. When I was applying to college, yes, people paid for SAT prep but very few paid for Achievement Test prep, and so Achievement Tests were a superior indicator.

This is a bad decision.

Subject tests helped me get into MIT from a public school in one of the states in the bottom 5 for education spending.

Take away the tests, and you take away the merit.

Is SAT prep known to make any difference?

Back when I applied to MIT (early 80s) our entire SAT prep was "fill in the circles completely, bring only #2 pencils to the test and if you can't eliminate even one possible answer skip the question." Back then I never heard of anyone using any more advice than just that.

A few years ago I bought some SAT prep books for my kid and he never cracked them.

Makes sense; doesn't everybody pretty much get perfect scores on these? (at least everyone who is a serious applicant to an institution like MIT) If everyone gets the same (perfect) score then the test doesn't really help the admissions committee select for the best applicants. Tests like AMC 12 may be more useful for this type of purpose.

Oxford also tried something similar by implementing their own entrance tests for engineering and physics (and other subjects). The idea was to stop private school kids with straight A GCSEs and A-levels from dominating. The entrance tests are supposed to be harder to prepare for, and therefore fairer - all that did was force the rich kids to get tutors and the situation remains largely the same.

One of the main reasons I didn't apply to the US for grad school is having to sit through the GRE (which I had no time to prepare for during my final year) and then to redo all my Masters courses because the US doesn't recognise foreign qualifications. Virtually anywhere else in the world you can convert your grades to local standard, and a masters is a masters. At grad level an interview is much more useful to gauge ability, as grades are a poor predictor of research output.

To clarify, SAT subject tests are the ones like physics, chemistry, Spanish, etc. Not the main verbal and math portion. For students smart enough to get into MIT, the subject tests are way too easy. Most students applying to MIT probably have near perfect score already, so for MIT it's probably not a useful indicator.

When I was at university, the head of admissions position at the school of physics was forced on someone who didn't want it. So he used it as an opportunity for an experiment.

He offered a place to everyone who applied. People with low grades, people without the maths prerequisite, anyone really.

Our intake swelled from about 60 students to almost 100. The ones without maths really struggled. Many dropped out.

But to him that was the whole point: if you're smart/hungry/hardworking enough to pass you'd pass. If you weren't, you'd drop out or fail. Either way, why should he try to "pick winners"? This way winners without math prereq (or whatever) still hey a chance.

That changed the way I thought about admissions as 2 of the extra 30 got a degree they never gave had a chance at otherwise.

A comment section of people who didn't read the article lol. They explicitly said they consider SAT to be a predictive metric of success at MIT. This is not critical of SAT, only SAT subject tests.

While they weren't explicit about why SAT subject tests won't be accepted, this may be a clue:

> No: in fairness to all applicants, we won’t consider them for anyone. We think it would be unfair to consider scores only from those who have scored well and therefore choose to send them to us.

Seems reasonable to expect tests which are optional to suffer from heavy selection bias as they described. I'd expect optional tests to also skew towards the rich because there is a cost to each test.

Oh... this actually makes sense. MIT is still accepting the main SAT test and AP tests.

SAT subject tests were always a weird thing in the middle. AP tests cover the same goal, but with more rigor and differentiation. (I remember taking the SAT subject tests just to "cover my bases", because they were there, not because there seemed to be any real reason.)

Also -- remember, even if your high school doesn't offer AP courses, you can still study for and take the AP tests on your own.

It was over 35 years ago, so it has absolutely no influence on me anymore, but I achieved a perfect 800 on the SAT math achievement test, along with a 5 on the Calculus BC.

But on the regular SAT, I only achieved around 1300 total, and the math part was somewhere between 780-800 (did I have a bad day?).

I never completed college, but I have been successful nonetheless.

I think that there is more to one's ability than simply achievement test scores, grade point averages, or college degrees.

Is there some other standardised exam (AP? IB?) that they will be considering instead? I went through a very non-traditional route to university, and standardised exams were an important part of me being able to demonstrate preparedness for university. I hesitate to just go on what grades someone gets at school, as it simply puts them at the mercy of their teachers and administrators, and some people like me didn’t really go to school...

It isn't exactly a surprise. Back then, in school, we toured the national synchrotron facility, and the same question came up: if didn't have much physics at school can you still study physics? The answer was: if you study physics they'll teach you physics just fine, where you'll run into trouble is the adjacent subjects, chemistry, biology, computing. You'll need to take care of that yourself.

>For all applicants: We require the SAT or the ACT. We do not require the ACT writing section or the SAT optional essay. > we still require the score because it is predictive in conjunction with other acedemic factors

So.....basically nothing has changed and the headline is extremely misleading.

Edit: so apparently this applies to the "subject" tests. I never took those and didn't know they were a thing, now I do.

To clarify, SATs are still required, subject tests are different.

From page:

"Will you still require the SAT or the ACT?"

"We will continue to require the SAT or the ACT, because..."

edited: formatting

> "... for non-native English speakers, we strongly recommend taking the TOEFL if you have been using English for less than 5 years or do not speak English at home or in school..."

I hope that TOEFL is offered on a pass/fail criteria. For. e.g. if you score (say) 85% or more, it shouldn't matter if you score 100% for purposes or communication or comprehension.

I'm sure this is for the sake of "diversity" yet this only harms those kids who can't do any extracurricular activities or similar and had to rely on standardized tests to have a chance. I should know, I was one of them.

So this can only backfire (if the goal really is to get more people from different backgrounds in), as these initiatives always do.

I am a class of 2020 MIT student. Taking these tests was sort of awkward in my case. My high school allowed me to take the ACT once for free. I did not have to take SAT Subject Tests for any of my other college applications. I am happy with Stu's decision here. I can speak more on my experience if people would like me to do so.

Nearly none of the comments are really about what they're eliminating: SAT subject tests (NOT the SAT!)

The main SAT is basically a basic skills and IQ test while the SUBJECT tests are almost entirely about preparation, making them much easier to game/prepare for.

Source: I tutored the SAT and subject tests.

I did poorly for SAT general ability test. But was at the top most percentile (I can't remember the exact number here, long time back) in the subject tests (I think I took Math and Physics). I wonder how that happened if both tests predict performance equally well.

What about the College boards initiative to consider adversity? Has that initiative gone anywhere or is it dead? I would rather consider adversity of a child's upbringing in context of standardized test results then any immutable traits.

Title nitpick, "SAT Subject Tests" is in a specific case in the original title, and the lack of title-case on "Subject Tests" is making it hard to understand the true announcement.

IE. SATs are staying, SAT Subject Tests are not.

What’s the point of the subject tests anyway when you already have AP exams?

It was pointless for me to do both in high school, the subject tests were much easier.

Another item on the list of recent things MIT has done/participated in to reduce its reputation in favor of pleasing the rich and powerful.

I took the SAT from Australia and was blown away by how ridiculously easy it was.

Maybe it’d be a better predictor of ability if they made it a bit harder.

"Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes."

The post is a little misleading. MIT will still require SAT or ACT, just not the subject tests.

Does MIT ask for AMC/AIME scores which are miles above the SAT Math Subject tests?

Wow I totally forgot about these. I can't even remember which one's I took!

I am always wary of universities removing testing requirements as they are usually motivated by activist pressure (vilifying meritocracy and pushing for equity, AKA equality of outcomes) rather than evaluating for the best talent more precisely. Anyone know more about what the story is behind this one?

What fraction of applicants were taking the subject tests in the first place?

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I wonder if this has something to do with the pandemic.

Itt: hackernews.txt

Ah man, 20 years too late for me!

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boolean satisfiability?

The only question that now matters: Do you like Trump? if yes, you are out.

Everyone here claiming that SATs aren't fair don't seem to realize that SATs are the most fair and most objective criteria in college admissions. It's not perfect but it's the best and only objective measure we have.

GPA is far worse than SATs because not only are each high schools grading standards different, each teacher's grading policy is different. There are plenty of dumb 4.0s out there but there aren't that many dumb 1600s.

Extra-curricular is more unfair than SATs because you generally need time and money and parental involvement for rowing classes.

Interviews are worse because it's a lot more about how the interviewer likes and relates to you.

Of course the most unfair part is legacy admissions which nobody wants to get rid of.

Sure, SATs aren't perfect, but it is the best and most objective measure we have. It's actually the only tool we have to objectively measure and expose racial discrimination in admissions policy. Now, people are fighting against SATs. The only reason I can come up with is that these universities want to participate in racial discrimination.

SATs, GPAs, Extra-curriculur, interview, etc should all be part of a student's portfolio for admissions. That universities want to remove the ONLY, though not perfect, objective measure is worrisome.

I'm glad I didn't study at all or have any coaching for the 1600 pt SAT I in the mid 90's because it would've been entirely unnecessary. I missed one question on the math section and it was a dumb mistake on my part. Our school's graduating class alone had over a dozen perfect SATs, multiple full rides to Harvard/MIT/Stanford and around 70 over 1500. ~97% had test prep.

Now go to India, take the JEE and find out how fun testing can be because the SAT is not much harder than a driving test. :) (Emphasis on the JEE being a much better measure because it's more difficult and more voluminous so that it would make Einstein feel insecure and inadequate.)

34 years too goddamn late for me. Yes I'm still angry I didn't get in, because my SATs sucked. Now I run a software company. EAT IT MIT! :)

Sometimes, there's good news from coronavirus

So they will consider what ? Recommendation letters ? Maybe they dont realise that people from disadvantaged groups dont really have the luxury to volunteer at one of those fancy NGOs. Standardized tests are actually except for the super expensive textbooks in the US. If these books for basic education could somehow be made free but oh wait - socialism.

I can project the going south of MIT.