Stanford joins the Squad Reinstating the ACT/SAT: Read Between the Lines of their Reasoning

Over the past weekend, Stanford announced its decision to join a series of elite universities—including Harvard, Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, and MIT—that have chosen to reinstate the requirement of standardized tests for admission. Their stated reason echoes that of other schools, citing a recent study that suggests standardized test scores are more predictive of academic success at Ivy Plus colleges than high school grades.

You can access the results of the January 2024 study, conducted by the research group Opportunity Insights, here: Opportunity Insights Study.

The information presented is compelling for highly competitive colleges, which have a prerogative to select students who will excel within their rigorous curriculum.

What implications does this have for high school students, however? Short answer: they’re not great.

Let’s read between the lines of Stanford’s reasoning. It’s not just true that elite schools now consider standardized tests as a key indicator of a student’s intellectual strength (a very different kind of conversation than that of a year ago). It’s also true that colleges no longer believe in grades as a true indicator of a student’s credibility. We’ve heard whisperings of this idea. It’s long been common among college admissions officers to mention grade inflation as a main reason they look to other aspects of the application like class rank, recommendations and activities. But now, it’s official: grades are no longer considered “predictive” of academic success.

This is tough on kids who attend schools that do not practice grade inflation — but at least those kids are helped by class rank and their schools’ college counselors, whose job it is to supply colleges with a school profile that outlines their school’s exceptional rigor. The kids from whom this is particularly unfair, however, are those who attend schools chock full of grade inflation, save a handful of particularly challenging teachers — those who still dole out Bs in place of As, and Cs in place of Bs.

Note: it’s impossible to blame these old-school teachers. A former teacher myself, I found the amount of As flung around a bit insane and not very useful for the development of a student’s character. I’m sure most teachers feel as I do: if college applications didn’t exist, neither would grade inflation. Nevertheless, all students are in a tough bind. The messaging remains: get As at all cost. But now there is an addendum: Get As at all cost, and we may not take you seriously anyway.

So, what should a student do in this scenario? It appears that hiring a SAT/ACT tutor and additional academic tutors may be as important as ever. Fortunately, we are prepared to assist. Check out our tutoring services here, and reach out if you have any questions. Group classes and merit-based discounts may make tutoring with us more affordable than you think.