More and more colleges seem to be making the SAT or ACT examinations optional. This, of course, has the effect of raising their average SAT or ACT scores, since only students who have high scores will send them in with their applications for admission. And this leads to looking a little better in the U.S. News and World Report rankings. But, never mind. When I read that Smith College and Wake Forest University were no longer going to demand that applicants submit achievement-test scores, I wondered what would come next.
High-school transcripts, perhaps? We all know that many grades are highly inflated and may not be a genuinely accurate reflection of a secondary-school student’s accomplishments. And surely, different schools have different standards. An “A” at most schools is probably not the same grade as it would be at the Bronx High School of Science. And what are we to do with AP courses? Is a “B+” in AP history better than an “A-” in a non-AP class? Without a common examination is there any way to measure the work in a high school in Brooklyn against that of a student in Brookline?
And while we are searching for a better admissions process, let’s take a minute to talk about letters of recommendation that have always seemed to inevitably be subjective. I’ve read hundreds, perhaps thousands; they always reveal more about the writer than the written about. An average student fortunate enough to have a recommendation from a superior writer will inevitably glow much more than a superior student burdened by a letter from me. And what to do with the recommendation that comes in on behalf of a student from the chairman of the board of trustees?
So we see that standardized exams are yesterday. Grades and transcripts can’t be relied on. Recommendations are fortuitous. I’m sneaking up on proposing a lottery: open to everybody with the application fee in hand and a body temperature of 98.6°. And we can get Harvard to pay the application fee for those who can’t afford it.
If we continue to chill the thermometer in order to cure the fever we are going to find it hard to explain ourselves to third parties, and we may experience questions about exactly what it is we are trying to do.
