Two excellent articles that highlight the possible future of standardized testing in college admissions:

1) NY Times: The Misguided War on the SAT: Colleges have fled standardized tests, on the theory that they hurt diversity. That’s not what the research shows.

2) Forbes: The SAT Is Making A Comeback—Are You Prepared?

Highlights from two articles on college admissions testing in the NY Times and Forbes:

“Just getting straight A’s is not enough information for us to know whether the students are going to succeed or not.” M.I.T. Dean of Admission Stuart Schmill

“Standardized test scores are a much better predictor of academic success than high school grades.” Christina Paxson, president of Brown University

“It strengthens the argument that the disparities in SAT scores are a symptom, not a cause, of inequality in the U.S.” Raj Chetty, Harvard economics professor

“Once we brought the test requirement back, we admitted the most diverse class that we ever had in our history.” Stuart Schmill, admissions dean, MIT

“Test scores have vastly more predictive power than is commonly understood in the popular debate,” John Friedman, economics professor at Brown

“The SAT just tells you a lot about how well prepared students are for college.” Bruce Sacerdote and Michele Tine of Dartmouth

“When you don’t have test scores, the students who suffer most are those with high grades at relatively unknown high schools, the kind that rarely send kids to the Ivy League.” David Deming, Harvard Economist

Given this new research, and college’s ongoing efforts to make admissions more fair and transparent, we expect the importance of standardized testing will only rise in the coming years.