SUNY drops SAT standards

New York higher education institutions are pushing away from the traditional standards of accepting undergraduate students based in part on SAT and ACT scores.

Vassar College in Poughkeepsie and the State University of New York were the latest to announce this week that they will no longer require students to submit SAT and ACT scores with applications.

SUNY temporarily suspended the requirement in June 2020, and Chancellor John King brought forward a resolution that was approved by the Board of Trustees this week to continue the policy. The resolution allows for each of SUNY’s 64 campuses to end the requirement and calls for a more holistic approach to accessing applicants.

“Each SUNY campus will continue with its longstanding commitment to a holistic review of student applications that includes grades, program of study, academic achievements, non-academic achievements, and other activities that allow for the evaluation of the potential success of a candidate for admission,” the resolution said.

Vassar President Elizabeth Bradley made the announcement on Thursday saying the college tested out waiving the requirement for the 2020-2021 application cycle, but will now make the change permanent.

“Studies have shown that test scores do not always accurately measure the qualities we are looking for in students,” Bradley said. Standardized testing simply shows who is a good test taker.”

The college began researching the move prior to the pandemic in the fall of 2019 and started the pilot policy in 2020 prior to the pandemic. Sonya Smith, vice president and dean of admissions at Vassar said research found the test scores could not significantly indicate if a student would graduate in four years.

“By going test optional, it sends a clear message to prospective applicants that we believe that they are smart, capable, and worthy regardless of whether they are a talented test taker,” Smith said in a statement.

From the Capitol

MAYOR PETE COMES (ALMOST) TO ALBANY: With a backdrop of the light blue Castleton-on-Hudson bridge stretching a mile over the Hudson River, Gov. Kathy Hochul and U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced federal funding to repair the 65-year-old bridge. The Thruway Authority project will get $21 million in federal funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and begin in 2024. Other repairs to the bridge are already underway.

What about congestion pricing? Buttigieg dodged a question about the federal review of congestion pricing: “We’re talking about something that is really new in terms of scope and scale relative to processing environmental reviews on something that we maybe do hundreds of in a year, like a bridge project,” Buttigieg said at the event south of Albany at Schodack Island State Park. “Certainly the Federal Highway Administration is working hard on that process… certainly one that’s getting a lot of good attention and resources to make sure that process is followed.”

The state passed a law in 2019 requiring the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to create a tolling system that could generate $1 billion annually for capital projects. The idea had been kicked around for a number of years, but only secured the political will after the 2017 “Summer of Hell,” when the subway and commuter rail system fell into severe disrepair from deferred maintenance and upkeep.

The MTA has faced several setbacks since the law’s passage in launching the first-in-the-nation system, which requires federal approval because some of the tolls would be placed on federally-assisted roads.

The Trump administration never informed the agency what kind of environmental review it would have to conduct, a move state leaders chalked up to “political extortion.” In 2021, the Biden administration cleared the MTA to conduct an environmental review, but has yet to approve the agency’s findings.

The agency’s environmental review found congestion pricing could reduce traffic into Manhattan’s core by as much as 20 percent for personal vehicles and 80 percent for trucks. New York has some of the worst traffic in the world. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, and suburban lawmakers have opposed the hit to drivers.

The MTA is considering ways to mitigate air quality impacts to the Bronx, which is expected to see higher truck traffic from drivers attempting to circumvent the new charges.

State transit leaders had initially estimated they would secure a determination from the Federal Highway Administration by the end of 2022. Since then, the MTA has pushed back its projected start date in monthly filings, now targeting the second quarter of 2024. So far, the delay hasn’t affected the agency’s ability to deliver capital projects, the public transit authority has said. — Danielle Muoio Dunn and Marie J. French

From City Hall

MAYORS CONVENE AT NAN: Adams led a discussion on public safety at the National Action Network convention with other Black mayors, who lamented what they described as a double standard they face on criminal justice issues and emphasized the need to address the root causes behind violent crime.

“Our problems are the same, and when you look at the problems we’re facing, they’re similar and there are a number of those problems, but public safety is probably at the height,” Adams said, talking with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who recently lost reelection, Mount Vernon Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard and former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter.

“Those of you who are from outside of Chicago, you’re like, wait, I thought Chicago was the murder capital of the world, I thought Chicago was the most violent place,” Lightfoot said. “But the truth is, and this is one of the biggest challenges, we have to break through what the media wants to portray Black-led cities as and tell the truth about what’s actually happening.”

The comment drew agreement from Adams and applause from the crowd. Patterson-Howard made similar remarks: “In all of our cities, we’re seeing the violence go down, but the reporting of violence is almost 400 times the incidence of violence, and that is a clear design.”

Nutter recalled coming in as mayor in 2008, right before the Great Recession, and having to make the decision not to hire 400 additional police officers he had promised during his campaign. “Notwithstanding that, in our first year just by redeploying our resources, by being smart in how we work with folks…that first year we had a 15 percent reduction in homicides.” — Janaki Chadha

MORE LIKE A PAPERCUT?: Mayor Eric Adams has mandated agencies trim spending or reduce vacancies four times since taking office, most recently last week. Some of those planned budget cuts — namely to libraries, CUNY and the 3K program — have generated backlash from the City Council and progressive political groups.

But the Citizens Budget Commission, an organization that has been preaching fiscal prudence during this latest budget cycle, released an analysis showing less than 1 percent of the first three savings programs would impact city services.

The organization found more than 90 percent of the administration’s first three rounds of savings plans come from spending less than what was budgeted, re-estimating costs, saving on debt service, tapping into outside funding or delivering city services more efficiently. Cuts that may affect city services, on the other hand, came out to 0.3 percent in the organization’s analysis. — Joe Anuta

On the Beats

BUDGET UPDATE: Not much of one, according to Hochul — who said the sides keep talking.

At the aforementioned event with Buttigieg, Hochul remarked about budget negotiations, now nearly two weeks late. She said the sides are “working around the clock. My team has not left town. I’ve had many, many meetings.”

But, according to officials familiar with the discussions, the sides remain without a deal on Hochul’s key priority to require the construction of new housing after they generally came to an agreement to remove the “least restrictive” standard to set bail in violent cases.

Another new wrinkle to budget talks: whether to change discovery laws that were tied to bail changes in 2019, as City & State and the New York Post reported Wednesday.

“I’ve laid out my priorities on how to make New York safer, more livable and more affordable. And that’s the budget I plan to deliver,” Hochul said Thursday without taking additional questions. — Joseph Spector

EDUCATION: Immigrant advocates are urging the city to invest in programs that serve immigrant youth and blasted the mayor’s proposed 3 percent savings target for the Department of Education. The New York Immigration Coalition and other organizations as well as Council Member Alexa Avilés rallied in front of Tweed Courthouse, the DOE’s headquarters on Thursday morning.

The advocates urged the city to make a $3 million investment to baseline comprehensive services for the six new English language learner transfer school programs in Queens, Brooklyn and The Bronx. They are also calling for a $2.1 million investment in a pilot program providing high school aged immigrant youth access to transfer schools in the outer boroughs.

They also called for a $4 million investment for the Linking Immigrant Families to Early Childhood Education (LIFE) Project for culturally and linguistically responsive application and enrollment for early childhood programs. And they urged the city to invest $75 million to hire more social workers in schools to support asylum seeker students.

“We know our newly arrived asylum seekers and many of our immigrant youth have faced significant trauma over the last few years,” Andrea Ortiz of the New York Immigration Coalition, said. — Madina Touré

Around New York

— The Central New York Regional Market is looking for $90 million in public funding to repair infrastructure issues. (New York Upstate)

— An Upstate New York farmer lost his 34 goats in a fire. (Times Union)

— Summer is around the corner, and Bryant Park announced the lineup for its free summer events that will run from June 1 to Sept. 14. (WNYC)

— The Port Authority unveiled new PATH train cars, the first of seventy-two ordered. (New York Daily News)