The long and short of it is that standardized tests like the SAT, SAT IIs, and ACT are the best robust, widely available proxies for predicting a student's ability to enter into and thrive within a challenging academic environment.

Keep in mind, these tests have become thresholds rather than sufficient qualifiers at this point in the admissions game. Simple population demographics will tell you: there are lots of extremely intelligent individuals vying for admission to top universities in America. Use of these tests does not necessitate dropping other factors from consideration - diversity, background experience, unique or particular talents, innovative thinking, etc.

Rather, it is simply an acknowledgment of the privileged position which elite universities can (and must) take in this day and age: we want our cake and we'll eat it too. And there's no reason it ought not be that way. Universities are pay-in non-mandatory institutions to increase human intellectual capital. By the time you're considering Georgetown, (thank God) you don't have to deal with issues of appealing to the 'least among us'.

It is an intelligent observation that the ubiquity of tutoring and coaching combined with the dynamic of multiple-iterations of test taking has lessened the value of the SAT in its present form. However, your conclusion (move away from these standardized tests) does not follow from the premises. A coordinated solution, easily achievable, would be to heavily discount individual admission chances for persons taking these tests more than once (in the real world, you don't get do-overs anyway) and for test-writing companies to continue to make robust efforts at remodulating the tests to strategically adjust to students' attempts at gaining an edge via the use of high-priced tutors.

Neither of these ideas are 'pie in the sky' or far-off-sounding reforms: a close glance at college admissions in the last 10 years will reveal an increasing willingness to discount applications received from multiple-iteration test takers (again, a nice function of a huge demand and a restricted supply of elite higher education); if need be, increase the harshness of such treatment. The companies running the SAT and ACT are continually adjusting the test to counteract attempts to game the system or 'out-study' it. Believe me, innovative and challenging testing methodologies are amply available and they will be implemented as the market demand for them increases. It isn't a sisyphean project to figure out how to create tests which accurately evaluate student performance capacity.

The unpolitic truth is that, in the best of all possible scenarios, we'd likely use a combination of IQ testing & one-on-one multi-day interviews to create a rigorous bivariable estimate of admissions suitability. No school has the funds to run such a regime and the legal (as well as cultural) regime as it is currently oriented will not permit straight-up intelligence assessments to rise to a position of prominence in admissions standards. GPA is simply too poor a predictor of tertiary-level performance ability because of the huge diversity of approaches (of varying success) to education across the country, combined with the tendancy for grade inflation amongst the cohorts that tend to apply to elite institutions such as Georgetown.

I like your article and I think its opening analysis of some of the problems being faced by standardized testing is insightful. Nevertheless, your normative conclusions are erroneous. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - fix the plumbing and draw another bath. We like to stay clean.

Important to get a few facts straight....
1. Leigh writes:
"It is important to note, though, that in recent years, the SAT reasoning test has become more of an aptitude test for measuring a student’s standardized test-taking ability rather than his critical reasoning abilities."
Probably not so. Because of changes made to the new Reasoning Test first released in March 2005, the test is likely less of an aptitude test. Preliminary results of studies by both the University of California and the College Board indicate that the new writing test is more predictive of first year college grades than the other sections of the Reasoning test. In 2005, in response to criticisms by UC beginning in 2001, the test was changed to add a writing section, eliminate analogies, and beef up the math to make it more representative of what college applicants should have learned through at least algebra 2.
2. Hoya writes:
"Neither of these ideas are 'pie in the sky' or far-off-sounding reforms: a close glance at college admissions in the last 10 years will reveal an increasing willingness to discount applications received from multiple-iteration test takers (again, a nice function of a huge demand and a restricted supply of elite higher education);"
Would love to see evidence of this but the fact is that schools have widely variant policies as to what they do with multiple tests. There certainly has been no widespread movement of which I'm aware in the last ten years to "discount applications received from multiple-iteration test takers." I also disagree with the premise. If students are willing to grind out SAT Reasoning tests multiple times why should we be punishing those efforts? I would suggest a better formula would be to average multiple tests, because in that way students know that they risk having scores drop.
3. Hoya writes:
"GPA is simply too poor a predictor of tertiary-level performance ability because of the huge diversity of approaches (of varying success) to education across the country, combined with the tendancy for grade inflation amongst the cohorts that tend to apply to elite institutions such as Georgetown."
A seeming common sense conclusion but in fact you can access University of California studies which indicate that HSGPA is a better predictor of academic college performance than the SAT Reasoning test. Even combined however, the two measures are relatively lousy predictors.
My suggestion is along the lines of what Charles Murray suggested last year. The SAT Reasoning test has become a "totem" for higher SES applicants. Whether correctly or not, it is wedded in the public consciousness with both privilege and IQ. Murray suggests that selective colleges begin requiring 4 SAT Subject tests in lieu of the SAT Reasoning test. (He really doesn't address the ACT). UC studies have shown that the Subject tests are better predictors of first year and overall college grades than the Reasoning test (at least the former Reasoning test).

"A seeming common sense conclusion but in fact you can access University of California studies which indicate that HSGPA is a better predictor of academic college performance than the SAT Reasoning test."

This is disingenuous. You are writing to a general public crowd who has little information regarding the debate that is going on behind these nascent studies. They are heavily debated and widely criticized in the literature. In my opinion, they're one econometrica article away from being thrown out. Others would disagree. But you are using a single study set to invalidate the cummulative consensus knowledge of about 20-years of cutting edge research.

"Even combined however, the two measures are relatively lousy predictors."

This is true - wouldn't disagree. But relatively lousy = still the best we have.

"If students are willing to grind out SAT Reasoning tests multiple times why should we be punishing those efforts?"

I think the whole point of this op-ed is that this further invalidates a test which is designed to predict aptitude, not an ability to show up on repeat occassions to a testing site. Indeed, isn't this one of the central points of the socioeconomic criticism: that multiple iteration test-taking skews in the favor of the relatively well off who can afford to engage in these slates of repeated testing?

"but the fact is that schools have widely variant policies as to what they do with multiple tests. There certainly has been no widespread movement of which I'm aware in the last ten years to "discount applications received from multiple-iteration test takers."

I'll just have to disagree with you here. At least with respect to the top 25 schools in the nation. beyond that, you may be correct and I would concede the point as I don't know the data to suggest one way or the other. But certainly, within the elite group of universities, ceteris paribus we've seen a statistically significant increase in disparate treatment between multiple vs. single iteration test takers who end up having the same 'high score' in the subareas. Ask any person in admissions (off the record when they aren't uttering the vacuous statements that have come to represent the official policy of 'no policy' of admissions)

"Whether correctly or not, it is wedded in the public consciousness with both privilege and IQ"

In my opinion, there would be nothing wrong with this if it were actually true from a rigorous measurement standpoint. I understand what you are saying (I think) in that the public at large has come to view performance on the SAT as a measure of raw intellectual ability which, as any first year in a social masters program can tell you, is untrue. Nevertheless, I don't exactly see why this is a negative (or postive) point. The focus should be on applicability to the admissions process, not what people at large think. I want what works best all else being equal, regardless of what Mr. Smith or Mrs. Jones on the street (or even Student Sally applying) thinks about it.

"Preliminary results of studies by both the University of California and the College Board indicate that the new writing test is more predictive of first year college grades than the other sections of the Reasoning test"

Would just like to point out that (and I know you didn't disagree with this point directly, so I'm just using it as an illustrative example) the ability for relatively rapid adaptability by the test-makers. I know it's neither cool nor popular to say in 2008, but we do still know how to make great objective measurement tests. The failure to adapt is not necessarily proof positive of an inability to adapt. College board got lazy for a few years.

:) Great discussion here guys. Appreciate the comments / back-and-forth. Refreshing compared to the rest of the hoya comment sections!

Hoya

I think we should get rid of entry requirements like reading skills, math aptitude, and the ability to write, and instead replace them with a lottery system. Each student would get a number (minorities would get 2 numbers) and Georgetown would pick 1600 numbers out of a hat. That way the system wouldn't favor rich kids who take SAT Prep Courses and fix the GPA comparison problems.