MIT suspending SAT/ACT requirement for next application cycle
One question on my mind (as someone who has a master&#x27;s degree and engineering degree and has never taken the ACT&#x2F;SAT) is how kids will go about showing pure intellectual merit?<p>Like let&#x27;s say you grow up ok but you can&#x27;t really afford to join the ski club or for a tutor and maybe you work in the evenings but you crush the SAT&#x2F;ACT because you&#x27;re incredibly intelligent. How will universities like MIT take that into account? If we&#x27;re talking about merit - boy that sure speaks of merit to me compared to a laundry list of clubs, activities, and organizations that the kids with hyper-dedicated parents or lots of money have on their applications.<p>I&#x27;ll also say, I didn&#x27;t take either of these tests and came from a family where to this day I&#x27;m still the only one to attend college, but if I had taken the SAT or ACT and scored remarkably well - I think that would have opened doors I didn&#x27;t even know exist. High school counselor ideally would have noticed a high score and helped with applications.<p>I don&#x27;t like these tests but I have to imagine a subset of the population uses them to great effect. Like many things, it seems, I bet that removal of these tests will result in bifurcation in the education system, or will wind up hurting poorer students (while making the middle extremely competitive).<p>Anyway. There are so many problems with the university system, starting with using universities to train workers, that it&#x27;s difficult to feel emotion anymore around the issue because it&#x27;s so overwhelming.<p>-edit-<p>For what it&#x27;s worth I don&#x27;t know if the SAT&#x2F;ACT are a good show of intellect. And these tests can be effectively gamed - not just illegally as we saw with the recent scandal but with tutors and test prep.<p>-edit 2-<p>Many students who are intelligent but grow up poor have a difficult time in universities, especially when they don&#x27;t get to take the same classes as their peers did in high school. I know I&#x27;m probably an average student, but when I went to my calculus classes after being out of high school for around 5 years I could grasp how to do derivatives and their meaning, but couldn&#x27;t understand the log functions or trigonometry. So I&#x27;d do most of the homework and take the quizzes, then bomb the exams when these concepts came into play. I felt miserable and I didn&#x27;t know how to study or how to even really get help - I didn&#x27;t even have a concept of what I didn&#x27;t know. I just thought I was dumb. It took 3 tries but I eventually got enough help and practice (thanks Khan Academy and others) to make it through, graduate, and go on to do other things.<p>Fortunately I had training in resilience from the military. What about that kid who grows up crushes a standardized test and fails a class and then thinks that they&#x27;re stupid and they don&#x27;t know how to ask for help or can&#x27;t afford tutoring? Those kids maybe they fail out, or maybe they have mediocre grades so when they go to try and get a job they&#x27;re competing against 3.8s with tons of on-campus activities. Yet again perpetuating the cycle of getting dumped on. Needs lots of luck or persistence to break the cycle.