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How Colleges Use Sat-Optional Applications to Covertly Impose Affirmative Action

Education Higher Ed, Affirmative Action
The Wall Street Journal reports that 1.7 million students in the high-school class of 2022 took the SATs, up 200,000 from the previous year. The number taking the ACT went up, too. Yet almost three-quarters of colleges offering four-year-degrees have gone test-optional or test-blind. So fewer schools now require tests but more kids are taking them. What’s going on? The short answer: Test-optional schools have created a two-tier system to get around complaints about their affirmative-action preferences. They don’t want scores that might screen out applicants they’d otherwise like to accept. But they do want test results from wealthier white kids because the tests provide valuable info. They’re perpetuating an unfair system. Continue reading the entire piece at the New York Post ______________________ James Piereson is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Naomi Schaefer Riley is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. This piece originally appeared in New York Post