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When undergraduate applicants to Columbia and Barnard begin their Common Apps this fall, they will be given the option—for the first time in recent history—to decline to submit standardized test scores with their application.

The perception that tests measure general intelligence is widespread at Columbia. From people putting their SAT scores on their LinkedIn to students bragging about how well they did on a final, everyone seems to assume that doing well on a test devoted to learned skills somehow indicates a person’s overall intelligence. Further, people think that somehow this measure of intelligence means that they deserve to be at an institution like Columbia. This is a dangerous assumption, but nowhere is this perception more propagated by than the SAT.

Clara Monk’s students can see her, but she can’t see them. Looking into the green eye of her webcam, she greets the ten high school students who have logged in and are awaiting instruction. Her only evidence that they are there, and that they are listening, is the stream of messages pinging in the group chat.

Barnard will no longer require SAT Subject Tests or SAT/ACT essay scores for its applications.

The Office of Undergraduate Admissions announced on Thursday that it will no longer require applicants to submit SAT Subject Tests or writing portions of the SAT or ACT. Columbia will join the University of Pennsylvania as the only Ivy League schools without either requirement.

Good morning, Columbia! Here's what you need to know as you start your day:

Good morning, Columbia! Today's Thursday! Expect more sunshine than you've seen all week and a high of 32 degrees. Columbia news:

I freely admit that I am terrible at learning and retaining new words. In my defense, they are hard to remember and there happen to be quite a few of them. (For the curious, the Oxford English Dictionary—which does not include technical or regional vocabulary—has about 170,000 entries.) I am a computer science major and a transfer student, which means that I skipped out on University Writing. I claim no special authority when it comes to grammar or style or the English language in general. At least, I claim none other than what a passionate interest in those things might give me.