Star Tribune
Most Minnesota colleges stick with test-optional admissions policies
Most Minnesota colleges are sticking with the test-optional policies they adopted during the pandemic, forgoing the use of an SAT or ACT score in admissions, even as Dartmouth College and some others reinstate the standardized test requirement.
Many colleges nationwide switched to a test-optional policy when the pandemic canceled in-person activities, including the SAT and ACT tests. However, an effort to reduce the influence of the SAT and ACT in college admissions had been in the works long before the pandemic because of the way scores can be influenced by economic disparities and other factors.
At St. Olaf College, Dean of Admissions Chris George said switching to test-optional, which the college planned to do before the pandemic, has been a major success.
“I think it matches what’s important to us,” George said. “Our data show that the classes that a student took, the grades they received, as well as the way they challenged themselves in high school with our holistic review was a better predictor for us.”
Dartmouth announced in early February that it would start requiring the SAT or ACT again, starting with applicants for the class of 2029. Some other colleges, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Georgetown University, have also retired their test-optional policies. In a statement about the change, Dartmouth President Sian Leah Beilock said the college made the switch after analyzing data collected during the test-optional period since the pandemic that showed that a holistic review without test scores missed students who might have stood out with that extra piece of information.
“In particular, SAT/ACTs can be especially helpful in identifying students from less-resourced backgrounds who would succeed at Dartmouth but might otherwise be missed in a test-optional environment,” Beilock wrote in a letter to the Dartmouth community.
Still, she acknowledged that the tests themselves “reflect inequality in society and in educational systems across the nation” and said the scores would be considered within the context of where applicants went to high school. For instance, she noted a high, but not perfect, score from a student could help that student stand out if their school had a low average score.
The reversal was disappointing to advocates of the test-optional approach who point out that wealthier families can afford to hire private tutors who know the best ways to get a high score.
Harry Feder, executive director of the advocacy organization FairTest, said to get a well-rounded class, college admissions offices should look to other metrics besides an SAT or ACT score.
“Thoughtful admissions departments who are not beholden to average SAT scores understand that to give kids an opportunity, to produce a multitalented class, a three-hour test is not a good metric,” Feder said.
Some schools, including California Institute of Technology (CalTech) and those in the University of California system, do not allow applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores.
In Minnesota, a few small colleges like Bethany Lutheran College and Martin Luther College still require an SAT or ACT score in admissions, according to their admission websites. But others are largely remaining test-optional, saying they use a holistic approach to admissions, where factors other than a student’s grades and test scores are considered.
Hamline University and Carleton College have committed long-term to being test-optional. The University of Minnesota is test-optional but has not committed to the policy long-term. Nearly 50% of applicants to the University of Minnesota did not submit an SAT or ACT score with their application.
“The University of Minnesota considers an ACT or SAT test score as part of the undergraduate admissions holistic review process if a student chooses to include a test score with their application,” Robert McMaster, the U’s dean of undergraduate education, said in a statement.
Still, students applying to test-optional Minnesota schools may not want to skip the SAT or ACT altogether because scores are still used in other ways. Winona State University uses SAT and ACT scores for class placement and some scholarships. Hamline also considers SAT and ACT scores when awarding some scholarships.
The College Board, which administers the SAT, noted test scores may demonstrate a student’s strengths and raise their visibility: “The SAT allows students — regardless of where they go to high school — to be seen by colleges and scholarship providers.”
Tests as barriers or helpful predictors?
Dartmouth said its internal study showed high test scores mirrored first-year student success more than GPA or other factors did. The president said that data, along with robust financial aid, will help recruit “the broadest and most talented student body possible.”
But Feder said Dartmouth’s testing requirement will have the opposite effect on applications because the tests present another barrier.
“It completely ignores that if you require the SAT, more kids won’t bother applying to Dartmouth, so they won’t get the disadvantaged students who would’ve applied without it,” Feder said.
Art Rodriguez, dean of admissions and financial aid at Carleton, said while colleges like his are satisfied with ditching SAT/ACT requirements in admissions, other colleges are still attached to those tests and may decide to bring them back.
“It’ll be interesting to see how each individual institution determines what’s the best practice for them based on the analysis that they’re able to conduct around student success,” Rodriguez said.
Jack O’Connor is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.
“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, more than 11,000 bridges in communities across America are finally getting the repairs they’ve long needed with funding from our infrastructure law,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in a news release. He said the bridge repairs ensure “people and goods can get where they need to go, safely and efficiently.”
A 19-year-old driver trying to get around slower vehicles collided head-on with an SUV in Wright County and killed one person and injured several others, officials said Thursday.
SUV passenger Janice Evelyn Johnson, 92, of Arden Hills, died Monday at HCMC from injuries she suffered in the collision on Oct. 22 in Monticello Township on County Road 37 near County Road 12, the Sheriff’s Office said in a search warrant affidavit filed in Hennepin County District Court.
The driver and two other people in the SUV survived their injuries, according to the affidavit, which the Sheriff’s Office filed to collect Johnson’s medical records at HCMC as part of its investigation.
According to the affidavit:
Deputies arrived at the crash scene and spoke with the car’s driver, Christian Kabunangu, of Brooklyn Park, who said he was heading west on County Road 37 and found himself behind two vehicles traveling below the speed limit.
“He was late for work, so he decided to pass them,” the affidavit read. Kabunangu said he saw the oncoming SUV and estimated it was about a half-mile down the road.
As he attempted to pass one of the slower vehicles, he explained, the other driver “sped up, preventing him from getting back into the westbound lane,” the filing continued.
As the Honda drew near, he swerved to the left, but the SUV did the same and they collided.
Star Tribune
University of Minnesota researchers find that native plants can beat invasive buckthorn on their own turf.
If the invasive buckthorn that is strangling the life out of Minnesota’s forest floor has a weakness, it is right now, in the shortening daylight of the late fall.
With a little help and planning, certain native plants have the best chance of beating buckthorn back and helping to eradicate it from the woods, according to new research from the University of Minnesota.
The sprawling bush has been one of the most formidable invasive species to take root in Minnesota since it was brought from Europe in the mid-1800s. It was prized as an ornamental privacy hedge. All the attributes that make buckthorn good at that job — dense thick leaves that stay late into the fall, toughness and resilience to damage and pruning, unappealing taste to wildlife and herbivores — have allowed it to thrive in the wild.
It grows fast and thick, out-competing the vast majority of native plants and shrubs for sunlight and then starving them under its shade. It creates damaging feedback loops, providing ideal habitat and calcium-rich food for invasive earthworms, which in turn kill off and uproot native plants. That leaves even less competition for buckthorn to take root, said Mike Schuster, a researcher for the university’s Department of Forest Resources.
When it takes over a natural area, buckthorn creates a “green desert,” Schuster said. “All that’s left is just a perpetual hedge, with little biodiversity.”
Since the 1990s, when the spread became impossible to ignore, Minnesota foresters, park managers and cities have spent millions of dollars a year trying to beat it back. They’ve used chainsaws and trimmers, poisons and herbicides, and even goats for hire. The buckthorn almost always grows back within a few years.
It’s been so pervasive that a conventional wisdom formed that buckthorn seeds could survive dormant in the soil for up to six years. That thought has led to a sort of fatalism: even if the plant were entirely removed from a property there would be a looming threat that it would sprout back, Schuster said.
But there is nothing special about buckthorn seeds. They only survive for a year or two.
