Calling Dr. Bonehead. By Rich Lowry.
More than 80% of four-year colleges won’t require standardized tests for admissions this coming fall. …
If this isn’t a leap forward for fairness or rationality, it is another ringing victory for the equity of “diversity, equity and inclusion” fame.
With homework now on the chopping block for not being equitable enough — kids with involved parents tend to actually do their homework — it shouldn’t be a surprise that the SAT is being shown the door. (If only there were some time-honored arrangement to have two adults wholly devoted to the well-being of one or more children regardless of their race or income living in the same household and providing support, discipline and moral instruction.)
The SAT, with its signature four-option multiple-choice answers, isn’t perfect. As a mass-administered, easy-to-grade, objective test, though, it’s hard to beat.
Despite progressive denialism, it has been established that the SAT and ACT predict academic performance. …
Redefining “success” and “merit” so blacks do better on average and Asians don’t stand out so much:
The deeper problem with the SAT, of course, is optics; it doesn’t produce the racial outcomes that the people who run institutions of higher education, especially elite ones, want.
At the end of the day, the test that has been smeared over the years as a tool of white supremacy is a conveyor belt for Asian Americans into top colleges in numbers that college administrators find embarrassing and inconvenient.
So they have an affirmation-action regime designed to keep those numbers down and fine-tune the racial balance of their student bodies to their liking.
This is where the SAT is unwelcome in another way. As an objective measure of preparedness with hard numbers attached, it provides incontrovertible evidence of the racial bias against Asian Americans in admissions.
Who wants that? With a likely loss in the Supreme Court’s big affirmative-action case looming, colleges and universes are already finding a way to finagle out of the decision.
Without the SAT, they can continue to get to the racial results they want without anyone being able to point to a paper trail showing continued discrimination.
Approximately 40 medical schools across the country have dropped the MCAT, a multiple choice exam that determines an individual’s ability to problem solve, think critically, and understand concepts about medical study, as a requirement for some applying students …
“The MCAT has been shown to predict who has the best chance to be successful in medical school,” [medical watchdog group Do No Harm] Program Manager Laura Morgan told the DCNF. “Eliminating it removes a proven standard for schools to consider when admitting students who demonstrate the aptitude to be good doctors.”
The MCAT is developed and administered by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). …
One of the schools that does not require all applicants to submit an MCAT score is City University of New York (CUNY) School of Medicine… At CUNY, the program takes seven years and aims to “increase the number of physicians of African-American, Hispanic and other ethnic backgrounds who have been historically under-represented in the medical profession and whose communities have been historically underserved by primary care practitioners,” according to its website.
From the more innocent 1980s:
