Track and Field and GREs
When the absurd becomes the norm
Recently, we stumbled upon the following:
2022 [University of Toronto Varsity Blues Track & Field team] Standards…May be adjusted for 2023
EVENT MEN’S STANDARD WOMEN’S STANDARD
60 m 7.40 8.30
300 m 37.00 42.00
600 m 1:24.50 1:40.00
…
High Jump 1.85 m 1.55m
…
Heptathlon Pentathlon 4100 points 3000 points
We searched high and low for the 2023 update. Nothing. Then, one of us had a dream. In it, the new standards were revealed: short, sweet, and radically holistic:
“No tiresome try-outs. Just three letters of recommendation and proof of participation in an Octoberfest beer keg tossing.”
What a team they’ll assemble! So inclusive, so stellar! Almost as stellar as UMass Boston’s Biology PhD program is shaping up to be.
Recently, UMass Boston’s Department of Biology became the latest among the College of Science and Mathematics' non-hard sciences to go full GRE-optional. The new requirements? Three letters of recommendation, undergraduate GPA (especially if from UMass Boston or a similarly rigorous institution), and - just kidding - an Oktoberfest beer keg tossing score. (Or are we kidding? Keg tossing might actually have stronger predictive value. Those steady hands come in handy for lab work.)
This is a small step for the College of Science and Math, but a giant leap for man/woman/NBkind - all hurtling toward the Instant University.
At the Instant University, you graduate mere seconds after applying, as long as you rank high enough on the 4-dimensional intersectionality totem pole (can we say totem? Or is it cultural appropriation?).
Q: Isn’t a few seconds too long?
A: No. Processing four years’ worth of international tuition payments just takes a bit longer.
Naturally, standardized tests like the GRE exist solely to gatekeep and exclude the marginalized - or so the logic goes. After all, “muggle” is a social construct. But try telling that to the ghosts of American GIs:
“In Vietnam, men recruited between the 10th and 33rd ASVAB percentile were 2.5 times more likely to die in combat.”
— Rob Henderson, “Dropping the SATs Hurts Poor Kids," The Free Press, March 6, 2023.
We’re confident that glowing letters from first-grade arts-and-crafts teachers will soon replace these outdated, racist, elitist, misogynistic, (and yes, transphobic) tools of oppression that are standardized tests.
The reformers are surely on the right track (and field... of study). But if, by any chance, they’re not, they may one day need to justify their decisions to the ghosts of the dead.
Update: One step forward, one step back. UMass Boston’s Physics Department has reinstated the racist GRE. Damn scabs.