This is the definitive book on the college admissions and test-optional debate in higher education. I just finished the book and was impressed with the depth of analysis and am somewhat confused by the detractors that have received some attention in the higher education press recently.
"Measuring Success" makes a compelling case for why the standardized test adds value to the higher education admissions process and is careful not to dismiss the idea that high school grades are important. Even in the one chapter that focuses on grade inflation, the authors acknowledge that high school grades do matter, but some caution should be given to how grades are inflating faster for some groups but not others. In the book, and as far as I have read in press accounts, test-optional advocates never offer a data-driven refutation of this point.
The best pro-test optional chapter in the book focuses on interviews conducted by a researcher at the University of Southern California. One particularly strong set of quotes comes from two different sources where one test-optional school admitted that before they went test-optional they became dependent on the standardized test they used. Another admissions officer thought admissions officers could abuse testing. A cautionary tale to be sure. My sense was that beyond the anecdotes which do resonate, there does not seem to be a lot of methodologically rigorous evidence with generalizable data.
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