But even in undergraduate, law, and medical school admissions, tests are only one of a number of factors taken into account. The authors' own example of University of Pennsylvania Law School admissions shows that only half of the law school class was chosen automatically based on LSAT and college grades. If tests really determined admission, we could fire all of our admissions committees tomorrow and have computers select incoming classes. We think it is important to remember that standardized tests were instituted to increase fairness and open opportunities in the face of selection processes that operated via subjective assessments and closed networks bound by class, race, ethnicity, and gender. While tests are not perfectly fair, Sturm and Guinier vastly oversimplify their effects.
Tests are a double-edged sword.
The use of SATs made it possible for Jews educated in public schools to compete with moneyed applicants from prep schools for entry into elite universities. 2 Standardized tests enable women police officers to legally challenge the decisions of their superiors when they repeatedly pass over the higher scoring females to promote male candidates. A survey of private firms in Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, and Boston in the late 1980s and early 1990s shows that when tests were used as important screening devices in hiring decisions, African American employment rates were higher than when interviews were used. 4 Sturm and Guinier are correct to point out that test scores today more often legitimate existing class and race inequality, and that small and essentially meaningless differences in test scores are used to differentiate among candidates who are functionally identical in skill, talent, and ability. The authors propose to replace these flawed tests with different strategies for leveling the playing field.