On Sept. 17, the Dartmouth Association of Latino/a/x/e and Caribbean Alumni’s board sent an open letter to the Classes of 1964 and 2014 opposing the recognition of College President Sian Leah Beilock for reinstating standardized testing in admissions. She had been selected for the 1964/2014 James Wright ’64 Outstanding Leadership Award by a joint awards selection committee of the classes of 1964 and 2014 in August.
Dartmouth Class of 1964 president Fritz Corrigan ’64 wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that the classes of 1964 and 2014 select Dartmouth community leaders who they believe serve as “examples” of the “noble purpose” of the College for their joint leadership award.
“The selection committee considered many factors and many terrific Dartmouth leadership candidates in making the choice of President Beilock as this year’s recipient,” Corrigan wrote.
Dartmouth was the first of the Ivy League universities to reinstate mandatory standardized testing score submission, which took effect for the Class of 2029’s application cycle. All have since done so.
In the letter, DALA president Unai Montes-Irueste ’98 wrote that honoring Beilock’s decision to reinstate standardized testing was a “slap in the face” to Dartmouth’s Latino and Caribbean community.
SAT scores track “family wealth and educational advantage more closely than it tracks aptitude,” Montes-Irueste wrote, citing research studies such as a 2012 Psychological Science paper, which found that socioeconomic status explained one-fifth of SAT score variance, and a 2017 Brookings Institute study, which found that Latino students make up 37% of the lowest-scoring SAT band.
“There is a narrative that [Beilock] is putting forward which says that bringing back this standardized testing requirement is going to be of benefit to underrepresented groups,” Montes-Irueste said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
The letter sent by Montes-Irueste was agreed upon by the DALA board, according to board member and Women of Dartmouth chair Gina Lam ’92.
“This has been an ongoing public topic of concern for DALA since the College’s decision to reinstate mandatory testing,” Lam wrote. “The board huddled and agreed to respond as such.”
DALA treasurer Marco Vargas ’22, who is a board member, wrote in an email statement that he believed he “benefited” from test-optional admissions as a low-income student.
“I think there’s something powerful when low-income students and cultural blends show up on campus — and I believe what DALA wants is for our community to be visible and supported equitably,” Vargas wrote.
One member of the DALA board declined to comment. Two other board members did not respond to requests for comment.
University of Maryland college of education professor Julie Park, who was cited by DALA in the letter and was a consulting expert for Harvard University in the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court case Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, said in an interview with The Dartmouth that requiring applicants to submit standardized testing scores does a “disservice” to colleges because colleges are “less likely” to enroll low income students that have low standardized test scores despite achievements in other areas.
“You can actually, through the holistic review process that Dartmouth and other Ivies did under test-optional admissions, still enroll very talented, low-income students,” Park said.
Other members of the Dartmouth community also expressed concerns about Beilock’s SAT decision.
When Beilock first proposed reinstating standardized testing, she approached Latin American, Latino and Caribbean studies professor Matthew Garcia to “sell the idea,” Garcia said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
“I said that, for Latino communities, the SAT is regarded as discriminatory,” Garcia said. But his takeaway from the meeting “wasn’t that she was interested in actually listening to my views. It was more about her selling the idea that she was going to bring it back no matter what.”
Beilock also spoke with Native American Alumni Association of Dartmouth co-president Kelii Opulauoho ’96, P’26 before reinstating standardized testing, Opulauoho said in an interview with The Dartmouth. According to Opulauoho, Beilock explained in that conversation that standardized test scores would be taken into the context of a student’s geographical location and would be used as “just another data point.”
“I understand the rationale President Beilock shared, and her belief that testing could help identify talented students from under-resourced backgrounds, including Native students,” Opulauoho wrote in an initial email statement to The Dartmouth. “At the same time, Native, low-income and minority communities face very different educational realities” compared to other Dartmouth students.
According to Montes-Irueste, the College did not approach DALA about the reinstatement of standardized testing.
“We want to invite President Beilock to engage in a dialogue … that she has been unwilling to have,” Montes-Irueste said. “From my perspective, having not been consulted and having not even been taken up on the offer to have a subsequent conversation about this, it feels like if we do not make clear that there is well-documented objection, and that that well-documented objection comes from all sides, right?”
Black Alumni of Dartmouth Association president Maria Cole ’84 said similar concerns from BADA were not addressed by the College when they were raised while the policy was under consideration in 2024.
“As a community at Dartmouth, we could resource engagement of students with promise and underserved communities, and we don’t do that,” Cole said in an interview.
Economics professor Bruce Sacerdote ’90 — who has studied how standardized test scores impact academic performance at highly selective colleges — wrote in an email statement to The Dartmouth that, because test scores are used “in context” of an applicant’s neighborhood and high school during Dartmouth’s holistic admissions process, low-income and first-generation applicants look “very strong” and have “similar admissions probabilities to other Dartmouth applicants.”
“When test scores are used in context as is done at Dartmouth, this addresses the concern and explains why Dartmouth is successful at identifying so many talented low income, middle income and first-generation students,” Sacerdote wrote.
A College spokesperson declined to comment.
Kailyn Holty ’29 is a news reporter from Redwood City, Calif., and is majoring in economics and quantitative social science.
