by Ellie Gardey
For years, liberals have scoffed at the idea that standardized testing is the best predictor of academic success. The National Education Association, for instance, claims standardized tests are “both inequitable and ineffective at gauging what students know.” Activists’ campaign against standardized testing — and their assertions that such tests discriminate against “underrepresented minority students” — culminated in the decisions by more than 1,000 colleges to drop their standardized testing requirements.
This week, cold, hard data showed just how foolish those decisions were. The University of Texas at Austin released the academic performance data for students who submitted standardized scores versus those who did not submit such scores. The result is unambiguous: Students who did not submit standardized tests performed drastically worse than students who did submit their scores. The students who did not submit ACT or SAT scores finished the fall 2023 semester with a grade point average 0.86 grade points lower than students who did. This demonstrates an average difference of almost an entire letter grade. Had the University of Texas utilized all applicants’ standardized scores, it very well might have decided against admitting many of those who did not provide their scores. Students who did not provide scores had a median SAT of 1160, markedly lower than that of the students who did provide their scores: 1420. The University of Texas would have been correct in deciding against admitting those students with lower scores given how much better students with a higher average SAT performed academically.
Additionally, students who submitted standardized test scores were 55 percent less likely to have completed the first semester of college with a GPA lower than 2.0. That cutoff represents academic failure, as students must have a GPA of at least 2.0 in order to graduate the University of Texas. This additional datapoint demonstrates that standardized test scores are key to determining who has the capacity to be successful at a certain college.
These findings confirm a large body of research that has repeatedly shown that standardized test scores are the best predictor of success in college. Much of this is due to the fact that grade inflation and drastically different academic standards at high schools make it difficult to ascertain students’ abilities and potential from their grade point averages. Standardized testing, on the other hand, is better able to provide a regularized metric to judge performance and ability. For example, a 2023 study by researchers at Harvard University and Brown University looked at the factors that are predictive of students’ success in college and beyond. The researchers found that students with higher SAT or ACT scores “have substantially better post-college outcomes” and better college grades. At the same time, they found that high school GPAs are “essentially unrelated to outcomes.” A faculty committee at the University of California likewise found in 2020 that test scores were the best predictor of academic success for the university system’s students. (Yet the university system decided to ignore that clear finding and throw out standardized testing altogether in the name of equity.)
When the University of Texas at Austin released the poorer results among students who did not submit standardized test scores, it also announced that it will require standardized test scores going forward. “Our experience during the test-optional period reinforced that standardized testing is a valuable tool for deciding who is admitted and making sure those students are placed in majors that are the best fit,” said the university’s president, Jay Hartzell. The university additionally argued that knowledge of students’ standardized test scores contributes to higher graduation rates, in part because such scores are predictive of graduation but also because knowing a student’s academic ability allows the university to provide greater resources to those who need them.
The University of Texas at Austin follows several other universities that have announced the reinstatement of standardized testing requirements in recent months. Just last week, Brown University announced a renewed testing requirement, explaining that test scores are “key indicators that help predict a student’s ability to succeed.” Yale University, Dartmouth University, and Georgetown University have also reinstated testing requirements.
Given the large body of evidence that demonstrates standardized testing’s ability to determine which students can be successful at a particular university, all universities that are aiming to teach at a high level should be reinstating their testing requirements. If they do not, they are simply bowing to a disproven tenet of DEI — and making their schools worse off in the process.
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Ellie Gardey is Reporter and Associate Editor at The American Spectator. She is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where she studied political science, philosophy, and journalism. Ellie has previously written for the Daily Caller, College Fix, and Irish Rover. She is originally from Michigan. Follow her on X at @EllieGardey. Contact her at egardey@spectator.org.
