Since court decisions and voter initiatives have prevented many colleges and universities from admitting minorities with lower scores, the Clinton administration is enthusiastically willing to throw out standardized exams. Perhaps all merit-based admissions standards will eventually suffer their demise. The use of standardized tests in university admissions has been debated since 1976, the first year that SAT scores were broken down by race. From 1976 through 1991, the gap between white and black test takers consistently narrowed. In fact, the only indicator of academic success that exceeds standardized exams in its usefulness for predicting college performance is class rank.
Standardized tests are still indispensable.
First, the most statistically reliable admissions procedure is to consider class rank and standardized test results together. Second, standardized exams help admissions officers overcome problems with class rank such as grade inflation and disparities in course difficulty and peer group competitiveness at various high schools. Finally, at very competitive colleges, all students with a high class rank simply cannot be admitted. For example, Harvard does not even have enough places in its freshman class for all the valedictorians who apply. Standardized tests are equally useful educational evaluators for all students, regardless of race.