SAT’s Back. The Experiment Failed.

 I’ve been watching the slow, quiet reversal on standardized testing and it finally feels like the data is catching up to common sense.

John Stossel just released a clear update on the whole saga: [VIDEO]

A few years ago, most colleges dropped the SAT requirement after activists insisted the test was racist. The pitch sounded compassionate: remove the barrier, open more doors, make campuses “look right.” Jason Riley of the Wall Street Journal cuts through the rhetoric in the video — it was never primarily about learning. It was about aesthetics and control of the student body.

What actually happened? Students who were mismatched to the academic demands of the schools that admitted them were set up to struggle or fail. Riley puts it bluntly: “They’re being set up to fail… It’s not working.”

The evidence was always there. SAT scores predict college performance about as well as high school grades, and the combination is strongest. A C-average student with a high SAT score tends to outperform an A+ student with a low SAT score once both hit college-level work. Every Ivy League school has now brought testing back. Columbia openly admitted scores are a “useful indicator.” The rest followed.

This matters here in Chicago and across Illinois. Our public school students — especially those coming from neighborhoods where the local high school doesn’t offer the same rigor or AP load as a selective enrollment or suburban school — need every accurate signal they can get. A strong SAT score has historically been one of the few tools that can open doors that grades alone (or a carefully curated extracurricular list) cannot. When colleges abandon that signal, the kids who most need a fair, objective measure are the ones who lose.

There’s also the mismatch problem. Placing a student into an environment where the academic pace and peer level are far above their preparation doesn’t help them. It often produces the opposite of the intended outcome. Real opportunity requires real readiness.

Stossel’s piece is short, direct, and worth the few minutes. It doesn’t claim the SAT is perfect. It simply shows what happens when institutions ignore predictive data in favor of ideology, then quietly reverse course once the results become impossible to ignore.

For those of us thinking about how to prepare kids in Chicago Public Schools and across Illinois, a few practical questions follow:

• How much intentional SAT/ACT preparation should our high schools be offering, especially in schools that serve students who can’t afford private tutoring?
• Are we still treating “test-optional” as a virtue, or are we preparing students for the reality that selective colleges have already moved past that experiment?
• What does a stronger focus on measurable academic readiness look like in practice — more rigorous coursework, better diagnostics, earlier intervention — rather than just hoping holistic review will paper over gaps?

I’d rather our students walk into college admissions with real evidence of what they can do than with the soft language of “potential” that too often leaves them underprepared.

Watch the video. Then tell me what you think this shift means for the next generation of Illinois students aiming higher.

Thoughts?