Writing

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Testing · Guidance2026-03-01
Test Scores Tell You Who Your Child Beat, Not What Your Child Knows
Why parents trust report cards over test scores — and why the researchers and journalists who call that a mistake are asking the wrong question.
Testing · Quality2026-02-11
Trying Out the CLT
A hands-on look at the Classic Learning Test — what it measures, how it compares, and whether it deserves the attention it's getting.
Admissions · Quality2026-01-14
Beyond the Headlines: A Review of Miracle Children
A close read of a book about exceptional students navigating elite admissions — and what it gets right and wrong about the system.
Testing · Policy2025-12-20
The ABCs of College Board
College Board is a marketing firm with a product to sell. Everything they do — including how they present data — is designed with that end in mind.
Guidance · Affordability2025-08-14
Do You Need a Private College Counselor? I Asked the Pros
A practical, unvarnished look at what private counselors actually do, who benefits, and whether the cost is worth it.
Grade Inflation · Admissions2025-06-08
The Myths of GPA in College Admissions Explained
GPA is the most trusted signal in admissions — and also the most misunderstood. Here's what it actually tells you and what it doesn't.
Testing · Guidance2025-05-03
Should You Take the SAT/ACT in 2025?
A data-driven guide for students and families navigating the test-optional landscape in a year when the rules keep changing.
Admissions · Rankings2025-04-20
Is It Hard to Get Into College?
The dramatic framing around college admissions obscures the reality: most colleges admit most applicants. Here's who benefits from the panic narrative.
Quality · Rankings2025-03-19
What Is a Good College?
Rankings tell you what someone else thinks is good. Here's how to build a framework that actually serves your family's needs.
Access · Equity2025-03-04
First Black Graduate
Research into when colleges that use legacy admissions graduated their first Black student — and what a three-generation headstart really means.
Guidance · Admissions2025-03-03
College Sports and College Search
Your kid is good at a sport. Here's an honest guide to what athletic recruiting actually looks like, and how to use it in the college search.
Technology2025-01-03
Large Language Models (Misnamed AI) Are Not Intelligent
The education world is talking about AI as if it understands things. It doesn't. Here's what that distinction actually matters for.
Quality · Equity · Guidance2025-01-12
HBCU vs HRC: The Value of Culture
The debate between HBCUs and highly rejective colleges isn't about prestige — it's about what you actually need from a college experience.
Testing · Guidance2024-11-29
The P in PSAT Doesn't Stand for Practice
Nearly 4 million students got their PSAT scores back. Most of them couldn't make sense of the report. That's a design failure, not a student failure.
Testing · Admissions2024-10-23
The Lionization of Testing and Other Weird Metrics
The Varsity Blues scandal revealed how colleges use test scores as a proxy for merit — and why that proxy is so easily gamed.
Rankings · Policy2024-05-06
The NY Times Doesn't Cover College
The paper of record covers Harvard extensively and the rest of higher education rarely. Here's the data, and why it matters.
Testing · Policy2024-02-29
Cutting Room: The Misguided War on Test Optional
What gets left on the cutting room floor when journalists cover the test-optional debate — and why those omissions shape the conversation.
Testing · Policy2024-12-10
Big Tobacco Is to ACT As…
The testing industry obscures data about its own products the way tobacco companies obscured data about cigarettes. The analogy holds up.
Affordability · Equity2023-06-29
Merit: Myths and Money
Merit aid doesn't go to the most deserving students. It goes to the students colleges most want to enroll. Here's the difference.
Admissions · Equity · Guidance2023-07-03
Race-Conscious Admissions: A Family Guide
The Supreme Court restricted one practice at some colleges. Here's what that actually means for your family, and what you should and shouldn't do differently.
Admissions · Guidance2021-08-29
College Essay Trauma Porn
The college essay has become a genre that rewards suffering. What that says about admissions culture — and what to do about it.
Testing · Policy2022-04-29
#HateRead: Admissions, Testing, and the Media
Media coverage of college admissions follows predictable, self-serving patterns. Here's how to read it critically.
Testing · Policy2020-10-16
Don't Believe the Hype
The promise of standardized testing as an objective measure has been questioned since 1936. We've just been very good at not listening.
Testing · Quality2020-10-26
Standardized Testing: The Temporal Scan of Education
Temperature tells you something real, but you'd never use a single reading to decide whether a patient is healthy. Testing works the same way.
Testing · Policy2020-03-25
Temperature Is to Testing As…
ACT's CEO said throwing away the thermometer won't cure a fever. He's right. But he's also missing the point — and so are most testing defenders.
Testing · Guidance2021-10-02
Should You Take the SAT/ACT or Not?
A practical framework for families trying to decide whether to submit test scores in a test-optional world.
Testing · Quality2021-12-19
Ben Simmons and Educational Testing
What a basketball player who can't shoot free throws teaches us about measuring skill, potential, and the limits of any single metric.
Guidance · Admissions2021-08-09
College Admissions Resources
A curated list of tools, data sources, and guides for families navigating the college process without the hype.
Testing · Admissions2019-12-21
GRE: The One Test
The GRE has an outsized influence on graduate admissions. Here's what the research actually says about what it predicts.
Testing · Policy2019-02-28
Why Aren't More Colleges Test Optional?
The research on test-optional admissions has been clear for decades. So why do so many colleges still require scores?
Equity · Admissions2019-01-19
Cheating Twice as Hard To Get Half as Much: Lessons from the T. M. Landry
A Louisiana school's viral college acceptance videos hid abusive discipline and admissions fraud, exposing a wider system already rigged against Black and low income students.
Access · Guidance2018-12-26
Access Organizations: Providing Social Capital
Access programs help underrepresented students navigate elite admissions. The question is whether they should also be challenging the system they navigate.
Testing · Policy2020-05-21
College, Career, and Cremation Benchmarks
The annual reports from ACT and College Board tell a story about America's students. They just bury the most important parts.
Technology · Testing2025-07-25
AI Cheating: The SAT-ACT Em Dash Controversy
Students are being accused of using AI because they use em dashes. The SAT and ACT taught them to use em dashes. The irony is not subtle.
Admissions · Guidance2024-09-17
Cutting Room Floor: The Hidden Factors Influencing College Admissions Decisions
What got cut from a Word in Black article on college admissions paradigms — including quotes from admissions officers that every family should read.
Access · Policy · Equity2021-08-27
What If... Thoughts on Education
Four alternative universes: what if access orgs challenged the system, philanthropy was decoupled from policy, and institutions valued educating over rejectivity.
Testing · Policy2020-07-10
Shuffling the Deckchairs of Testing
Boston Public Schools is looking for a new test. But the problem isn't the specific test — it's the reliance on testing in the first place.
Testing · Policy2020-06-01
It's Time to Fix Standardized Testing
Six concrete proposals for how standardized testing agencies could fix what is broken and actually serve students instead of sorting them.
Testing · Equity · Guidance2019-06-24
IACAC 2019 Keynote Address
Highlights and resources from the keynote at the 2019 IACAC Conference on the Youngian meritocracy, testing, and what counselors can do about it.
Testing · Quality2015-09-18
Stanford Shows They're Not So Smart After All
Stanford asked Malala Yousafzai, Nobel laureate and education activist, to submit SAT scores. The reasoning behind that request says more about testing than about Malala.