University of Tennessee System Reinstates Standardized Testing Requirement
“found that standardized testing is beneficial to the system’s admission process”
This shows that progressive policies can be reversed. It’s a good sign.
Campus Reform reports:
TN universities reinstate standardized testing requirement
The University of Tennessee System (UT) announced recently that it has ended its test-optional admissions policy.
The new policy requires first-year applicants to submit an ACT or SAT score in order to be considered for the Fall 2023 semester.
Melissa Tindell, executive director of communications at the UT system, told Campus Reform that standardized test scores are part of a “holistic” admissions process.
“Standardized test scores, while important, only represent one component of the holistic admissions processes,” Tindell stated.
The test-optional policy was launched in July 2020 to “help prospective students” when the testing centers were closed during COVID-19.
A January 2022 report to the UT Board of Trustees, however, found that standardized testing is beneficial to the system’s admission process.
However, data on the pilot program submitted by four UT campuses in January proved that
The research found that “adding standardized test scored to high school GPA can have the important effect of statistical moderation” that “offset[s] differences in grading across high schools.”
It also found that using standardized test scores in addition to GPA gave a better indicator of a student’s academic ability.
“Looking across student subgroups, the joint use of ACT Composite scores and high school GPA resulted in greater prediction accuracy than when either predictor was used alone,” the report concludes.
The report also acknowledged that a majority of students chose to submit standardized test scores despite it being optional.
UT System President Randy Boyd said in a statement that the test-optional pilot was an “exception we made to our admissions practices for the last two years.”
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“A January 2022 report to the UT Board of Trustees, however, found that standardized testing is beneficial to the system’s admission process.”
So, does UT have a History Department?
Because their administrators seem insistently doomed to repeat it.
Good! One-size-fits-all education produces mediocre students, suppressing achievement, and elevating non-achievement.
It is yet another step towards “everybody has a right to go to college” mantra of the left, which, of course, will be “free.”
I think this was covered by Judge Robert Bork in his book “Slouching towards Gamorrah,” under “The Decline of Intellectualism.”
Yet another reason why Bork would have been an excellent Supreme Court justice. Instead, we get the “wise (but leaky) Latina.”