2 Colleges End Entrance Exam Requirement - NYTimes.com

You can tell that I haven't been reading the news. Can you believe this? Its very interesting. When Harvard stopped early admissions, a dozen other colleges followed suit. I don't think the same will happen here, although Wake-Forest is ranked 30th according to US News and could impact other schools pulling from a similar pool of applicants.

The schools cite the failure of SATs to predict college success and the need to attract a more diverse population of students. Also, and interestingly, many students still submit their SAT scores since they need to do so for other colleges.

I am once again torn between my personal experience and my feeling for what's best for education. I was always proud of my high SAT score, but I'm willing to acknowledge that the fact that I went to great (public) schools and had parents who were engaged in my learning from an early age contributed greatly to those scores. Cultural factors seem to play an important role in how well people do on these tests.

I do think the scores can show a high aptitude for learning, retaining, and analyzing knowledge, but I don't know how well the scores predict in general college success which, depending on your major, requires a wide array of skills. I had always read they were one of the best indicators, the same way that LSATs predict with relative accuracy law school success. I don't know if GREs are the same way... it's such a watered-down test that I feel like it has little meaning.

I'll dig a little and see what I can find.

2 Colleges End Entrance Exam Requirement - NYTimes.com: "Smith College, a women’s college in Northampton, Mass., and Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., will no longer require prospective students to submit SAT or ACT scores as part of their applications."