(Press-News.org) Study: "Untested Admissions: Examining Changes in Application Behaviors and Student Demographics Under Test-Optional Policies"
Author: Christopher Bennett (Vanderbilt University)
This study was published today in American Educational Research Journal.
Key Findings:
In undergraduate admissions, the adoption of test-optional policies at selective private institutions was linked to a 3-4 percent increase in enrollment of Pell Grant recipients, a 10-12 percent increase in enrollment of first-time Black, Latinx, and Native students, and a 6-8 percent increase in enrollment of first-time students who were women.
However, these gains translate into only a 1 percentage point increase in the share of the student body receiving Pell Grants, a 1 percentage point increase of the share of incoming students who were from underrepresented racially/ethnically minoritized backgrounds (i.e., Black, Latinx, and Native students), and a 4 percentage point increase in the share of incoming students who were women.
Details:
In recent decades, a growing number and variety of institutions have turned to test-optional admissions policies (which enable students to apply without submitting ACT or SAT scores), frequently citing a goal of boosting the diversity of their student populations.
By the 2010s, what originated as a niche practice among liberal arts colleges had expanded to an increasingly mainstream approach to admissions at institutions that varied substantially in terms of selectivity and mission. These policies attracted even more extensive attention following the implementation of a test-optional policy at the University of Chicago in 2018. This study offers some of the earliest evidence regarding test-optional policies at this much wider pool of adopters.
This study examined a diverse set of selective private institutions that adopted test-optional undergraduate admissions policies to determine the effect of the policies on application behaviors and student demographics.
Using an institution-level dataset assembled from multiple sources, this study compares nearly 100 selective private institutions that implemented test-optional policies between 2005-06 and 2015-16 (a treated group of earlier-adopters) to more than 100 others that subsequently enacted or announced test-optional policies by December 2019 (a comparison group of later-adopters).
The author found that adoption of test-optional policies was linked to a 3-4 percent increase in enrollment of Pell Grant recipients, a 10-12 percent increase in enrollment of first-time students from underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds, and a 6-8 percent increase in enrollment of first-time students who were women. These patterns were generally similar for both the more selective and less selective institutions examined.
There were no detectable changes in the enrollment of White and Asian students after test-optional policies went into effect.
Although the enrollment increases among Pell Grant recipients and underrepresented racially/ethnically minoritized students were somewhat substantial in relative terms (3-4 percent and 10-12 percent, respectively), such effects would translate into only a 1 percentage point increase for those groups as a share of the student body.
"While demonstrating the potential of test-optional policies to help improve college access, these findings suggest that test-optional policies alone may be insufficient to achieve a truly transformative change in the representation of underserved students at selective private institutions," said author Chris Bennett, a doctoral candidate in education policy at Vanderbilt University. "For institutions seeking dramatic shifts in the student populations they serve, thoughtfully designed test-optional policies would likely need to represent one facet of a more comprehensive plan."
"Given that students from low-income backgrounds are among those whose standardized test scores are systematically lower than their other academic performance measures, they would appear to be some of the prime candidates to benefit from test-optional policies, but that didn't appear to happen to a large degree," said Bennett.
"That may be because many of them were not aware of the option or because their wealthier peers strategically used these policies in a way that offset the benefit to students from low-income backgrounds," Bennett said.
Due to the share of women already enrolled at the private institutions examined in the study, the absolute effects on enrollment trends for women--an increase of 4 percentage points in their share--exceeded the shifts for both Pell Grant recipients and underrepresented racially/ethnically minoritized students.
The author noted that with women accounting for the majority of students at adopting institutions, increases in the enrollment of women could be an unintended consequence of test-optional policies.
The author did not find evidence of changes in overall application volume or yield rate. Some evidence suggested that there may have been early gains in applications that quickly subsided.
The author noted that it is especially difficult to anticipate the likely effects of the test-optional policies that became a practical necessity for hundreds of additional institutions during the COVID-19 pandemic, due in part to a substantially diminished number of standardized tests completed during the pandemic, a dramatic rise in pass/failing grading, and the abrupt nature of these pandemic-related shifts to test-optional policies.
INFORMATION:
To talk to the study author, please contact AERA Communications: Tony Pals, Director of Communications, tpals@aera.net, cell: (202) 288-9333; Tong Wu, Communications Associate, twu@aera.net, cell: (202) 957-3802
About AERA
The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the largest national interdisciplinary research association devoted to the scientific study of education and learning. Founded in 1916, AERA advances knowledge about education, encourages scholarly inquiry related to education, and promotes the use of research to improve education and serve the public good. Find AERA on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Study: "Disproportionate Burden: Estimating the Cost of FAFSA Verification for Public Colleges and Universities"
Authors: Alberto Guzman-Alvarez (University of Pittsburgh), Lindsay C. Page (University of Pittsburgh)
This study was published today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
Main Findings:
The institutional compliance costs of the FAFSA verification mandate in 2014 totaled nearly $500 million, with the burden falling disproportionately on public institutions and community colleges in particular.
Twenty-two percent of an average community college's financial aid office ...
Study: "21st Century Tracking and De Facto School Segregation: Excluding and Hoarding Access to College Prep"
Author: Heather E. Price (Marian University)
This study will be presented today at the AERA 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting.
Session: Schools and Social Policy: Segregation, Housing, and Transportation
Date/Time: Monday, April 12, 9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. ET
Main Finding:
The prevalence of Black, non-Hispanic students in high schools that do not offer any AP or IB courses in multi-school districts that fund college-prep curricula cannot be explained by resource or school factors.
Details:
Using national data, this study examined how the ...
BEER-SHEVA, Israel...April 13, 2021 - Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have for the first time identified new drug candidates based on molecules isolated from probiotic Kefir yogurt for combating pathogenic bacteria and treating various inflammatory conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and COVID-19 related cytokine storms.
The research, published in Microbiome, a leading peer-reviewed publication was led by Orit Malka, a Ph.D. student of Prof. Raz Jelinek, GU vice president and dean for research and development.
"These results are notable, since this is the first demonstration that virulence of human pathogenic bacteria can be mitigated ...
Study: "Paying for Whose Performance? Teacher Incentive Pay and the Black-White Test Score Gap"
Authors: Andrew J. Hill (Montana State University), Daniel B. Jones (University of Pittsburgh)
This study was published today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
Key Finding:
Teacher incentive pay programs that focused on raising student achievement in high-need high schools expanded the test score gap between Black and White students by between 64 percent and 85 percent.
Details:
The Black-White test score gap has proven to be one of the most persistent phenomena in American education, for reasons that cannot be entirely explained by student characteristics or school and teacher quality.
Teacher performance pay is increasingly common in the United States ...
GEOGRAFI A new study by a University of Copenhagen researcher finds that thawing permafrost in Alaska causes colder water in smaller rivers and streams. This surprising consequence of climate change could affect the survival of fish species in the Arctic's offshore waters.
Arctic stream
The study's researchers discovered that thawing permafrost causes groundwater to run deeper, where it becomes cooler than when it flows near the soil surface.
Rising global temperatures are causing frozen Arctic soil - permafrost - to thaw. In a new study, researchers have discovered something surprising: small ...
Tsukuba, Japan - Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common liver disorder worldwide, affecting as much as a quarter of humanity. It is characterized by fat accumulation in liver cells and may progress to inflammation, cirrhosis and liver failure. Now, researchers at the University of Tsukuba reveal the positive effects, beyond the expected weight-loss benefit, of exercise on the liver.
NAFLD is associated with unhealthy behaviors such as overeating and a sedentary lifestyle. In Japan 41% of middle-aged men have NAFLD and 25% will progress to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and hepatic dysfunction.
Weight reduction is fundamental to NAFLD management. Unfortunately, ...
Tsukuba, Japan--Liver disease, from metabolic and bacterial causes, is a growing concern. What connects these dots? The gut, or more specifically, bacteria in the gut. Bacteria that cause inflammation in the mouth are transported through the digestive tract to the gut and liver, where they can cause liver inflammation. Lipopolysaccharides, important structural molecules in some bacteria, act as endotoxins, producing systemic effects that can manifest as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Now, a multidisciplinary team from the University of Tsukuba show that exercise could be used to improve the oral environment in people with NAFLD, potentially leading to a new treatment for the disease.
These ...
Osaka, Japan - Humans are exposed to many types of bacteria daily, the majority of which are harmless. However, some bacteria are pathogenic, which means they can cause disease. An extremely common pathogenic bacterial infection is Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) in the stomach, where it can lead to chronic inflammation (gastritis), ulcers, and even cancer. A group of researchers from Osaka University have determined a specific molecular mechanism that H. pylori uses to adapt to growing in the human stomach for long periods of time.
In a report published in Nature Communications, this group found that a small RNA molecule called HPnc4160 plays a key role in how H. pylori invades the stomach ...
Researchers at the University of Calgary and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), in Toronto, have discovered genetic risk factors for OCD that could help pave the way for earlier diagnosis and improved treatment for children and youth.
"Our group made the first finding of a genome-wide significant risk gene relevant to childhood OCD," says Dr. Paul Arnold, MD, PhD, co-principal investigator, a professor and director of The Mathison Centre for Mental Health Research & Education at the Cumming School of Medicine. "We've known that OCD runs in families, but we hadn't identified and validated specific genetic risks of OCD symptoms in children and youth until now."
The research drew on ...
Inserting lightweight optimization code in high-speed network devices has enabled a KAUST-led collaboration to increase the speed of machine learning on parallelized computing systems five-fold.
This "in-network aggregation" technology, developed with researchers and systems architects at Intel, Microsoft and the University of Washington, can provide dramatic speed improvements using readily available programmable network hardware.
The fundamental benefit of artificial intelligence (AI) that gives it so much power to "understand" and interact with the world is the machine-learning step, in which ...
