Dartmouth College Brings Back SAT Requirement
Jose Nino
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During an announcement on February 5, 2024, Dartmouth College will once again use the SAT to help determine who is admitted to the university.
“Informed by new research, Dartmouth will reactivate the standardized testing requirement for undergraduate admission beginning with applicants to the Class of 2029,” the college announced on February 5.
The statement noted that Dartmouth discounted its standardized testing mandate in 2020 owing to the Wuhan virus pandemic.
“At the time, we imagined the resulting ‘test-optional’ policy as a short-term practice rather than an informed commentary on the role of testing in our holistic evaluation process,” per the statement. “Nearly four years later, having studied the role of testing in our admissions process as well as its value as a predictor of student success at Dartmouth … we believe a standardized testing requirement will improve — not detract from — our ability to bring the most promising and diverse students to our campus.”
The statement finished by noting that the campus community “contextualized testing will be one factor — but never the primary factor — among the many quantitative and qualitative elements of our application. As always, the whole person counts, as do the environmental factors each person navigates.”
“Our goal at Dartmouth is academic excellence in the service of training the broadest swath of future leaders,” President Sian Beilock said to The New York Times. “I’m convinced by the data that this will help us do that.”
Campus officials informed The New York Times they are confident they can still have a “diverse” student body with the SAT policy in place, despite the recent Supreme Court ruling that prohibited affirmative action. NYT reported “Dartmouth can legally admit a diverse class while using test scores as one part of its holistic admissions process.”
Dartmouth is one of the most elite universities in the nation. However, the embrace of lax testing standards has likely contributed to a decline in its overall student body quality. The good news is that cooler heads are beginning to prevail at Dartmouth and testing has been restored.
Dartmouth is a historically renowned institution and its success lies in the fact that it has very tough and exclusive admission process.
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