Eliminating Testing Necessities Can Increase Pupil Variety

The proportion of underrepresented minority college students elevated in some instances after universities stopped requiring candidates to submit standardized check scores, based on a study published Monday within the American Sociological Review. 

The findings come within the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted many schools and universities to rethink their testing insurance policies; some went test-optional or test-blind whereas others doubled down. But beginning lengthy earlier than the pandemic, critics have argued that consideration of standardized check scores typically benefits white and wealthier candidates. 

The research examined admissions patterns at 1,528 schools between 2003 and 2019. During the 16-year time-frame, 217 of these schools (14.2 p.c) eradicated standardized testing necessities. But researchers discovered that merely eliminating testing necessities didn’t assure a extra numerous pupil physique.  

The establishments that eradicated the necessities however nonetheless gave important weight to check scores throughout the utility course of didn’t enhance their enrollment of underrepresented college students within the three years after the change. However, schools that lowered the burden of check scores confirmed a 2 p.c enhance in underrepresented pupil enrollment. 

Additionally, researchers discovered that will increase in minority pupil illustration had been much less possible at test-optional schools that had been additionally coping with monetary or enrollment-related pressures. 

Greta Hsu, co-author of the paper and a professor on the University of California, Davis, Graduate School of Management, said in a news release that “although test-optional admissions policies are often adopted with the assumption that they will broaden access to underrepresented minority groups,” their effectiveness relies upon “on existing admissions values and institutional priorities at the university.”