The pandemic and the inability for many students to take the then required standardized testing for college admissions has changed the college landscape over the past few years. To make decisions related to whom to admit, colleges had to do some fancy footwork while explaining why this once necessary piece of information was no longer required. In this article, I will explore some of the background issues as well as the current, albeit ever-changing, requirements.
History: The effort to develop a standardized measurement to compare the human intellect of individuals began in 1838 with the work of Horace Mann. By 1900 the College Entrance Examination Board had been established and in 1926, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was introduced as a method to compare the analytical abilities of students across the country. Although the inference was that this assessment would give us insight into the innate intelligence of the individual, it never was meant to do that.
In 1958, the American College Testing (ACT), was born as an alternative to the SAT. The SAT is primarily aimed at strategic thinkers while the ACT is for quick thinkers. In my experience, the SAT is designed to confuse the student, but the ACT is designed for the student who can quickly recall or infer information based on the question asked. At the same time, a new goal is to determine subject-specific knowledge via the SAT Subject tests and the Advanced Placement programs. Testing became king.
The effect was to transform American education by requiring that they be submitted for college admissions, scholarship attainment, and as a method to assess the effectiveness of instruction at the schools which the student attends. This was the trend, but the disparities between the funding offered at those schools, the socioeconomic condition within which the students lived, or other factors such as educational attainment of the parents, or racial barriers was ignored. As time went on, a robust test-prep industry was born. Because of the costs to take these assessments multiple times and the fees charged to prepare students for them, low-income students were further disadvantaged.
Value of SAT or ACT: Over the last 45 years, grades in American high schools have steadily risen. Where the traditional bell curve with C (average) as the center point is long gone. In 1965, only 21.8% of graduating high school seniors had an A average. By 2020, that had risen to 68.1%. (Source: www.DavidBlobaum.com) These statistics were compiled by examining the information provided by Mr. Blobaum using the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) data archive (https://heri.ucla.edu/data-archive/register/).
If grades cannot be trusted to accurately address student competence, what do we use? Obviously, standardized testing is the answer.
Test Optional
When Covid made testing difficult, colleges that formerly were huge proponents of testing, had to re-evaluate their stances. A lot of talk about holistic admissions began to be heard. Suddenly, the assessments became only one datapoint in the student profile and a less significant one at that. Students were in a quandary. Is testing important enough for me to travel a few hundred miles from home to get a test? My answer was always, No.
Some schools purported to be Test Optional on their websites but told counselors behind the scenes that a student not submitting scores was disadvantaged in the admission process. Some put in fine print the fact that students who did not submit either an SAT or ACT were not eligible for scholarships or for their Honors Program. For students who used an IEC in the college process, this information was known; for the many students who don’t it remained a mystery. In the years following, it has been increasingly difficult to assess the admissions rate for those who submitted as compared to the admissions rate for those who did not.
What now:
In 2023, the chips began to fall in reference to testing. The Florida system never made their admissions test optional. In 2020, the University of California system has declared that testing is no longer a requirement. Other colleges have recently changed their test optional stance. Among them are MIT, Dartmouth, Brown, Georgetown, Purdue, and Yale who have announced that they would resume the testing requirement. The University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, require testing but the other state colleges do not. The University of Florida system never went test optional. Recently, the University of Texas at Austin, one of the behemoth research universities, has declared that it would resume the testing requirement for admission.
Why is this happening:
The above-mentioned colleges and universities have seen diminished student performance when testing was not considered. For example, The New York Times reported (3/11/2024) that UT-A’s analysis of freshman performance indicated a higher freshman GPA for those who submitted testing and less stellar performance from students who did not submit. This is reflected in the announcements of the other colleges who are returning to testing as well.
“Higher SAT/ACT scores are associated with higher college GPAs, but higher high school GPAs are not.
This figure depicts the relationship between students’ performance on standardized college entry exams (SAT/ACT) as well as their high school GPAs relative to their academic performance in college (first-year college GPA) when controlling for race, gender, and family income, as well as other characteristics such as first- generation and legacy status.”
How does test optional admissions affect the process:
In addition to all the confusion about whether to test and then whether to submit the results came an avalanche of applications from students who would never have considered applying to certain prestigious universities. Since the perception by the family was that a 3.5 GPA was in fact “stellar,” the birth of the “what do we have to lose” phenomenon began. Students who were truly not academically strong enough to consider these colleges began to apply, and without an objective measure by which they could be compared to other applicants, they got in and then could not do the work or stand the pace of the environment. Seats that had really been earned by stronger students were being taken by less qualified applicants.
More Complicating Factors:
The Supreme Court ruling that removed Affirmative Action considerations from the college admissions process has further muddied the waters when it comes to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for underrepresented minorities who often come from schools that offer fewer opportunities and less robust learning chances. What is interesting to me is that the colleges that have resumed testing requirements have indicated that minority students who present a respectable, albeit not stellar, test score perform equally well in the classroom as the majority student who had the advantages of significant test prep, educated parents, and the financial wherewithal to experience the world in greater breadth and depth. These students are often not represented in the candidate pool if they are not required to submit a test score that allows them to be found.
The Bottom Line:
Testing will remain controversial until and unless we can create a level playing field for all students regardless of family income, race, national origin, or other factors. I believe that we need to have the national will to do the following:
- Strengthen the educational opportunities provided to all children. To do this, the disparity between and among the offerings at United States schools, whether they are in West Virginia (#50) or Massachusetts (#1) (Source: https://wallethub.com/edu/e/most-educated-states/31075 3/12/24). This would require a national approach rather than a state-driven approach that has too much political muck and mire in it.
- Provide good quality test preparation to all students regardless of the family’s ability to pay or limit the number of times a person can take the tests. There is no logical reason for some students to take the tests four, five, and even six times while another student can only afford to take it once. Perhaps every student takes both the SAT and ACT once in school and paid for by the school district. Many districts are now offering these assessments in lieu of other forms of standardized testing to evaluate the performance of the schools. Make it a requirement and use federal or state funding to do it.
- Reduce or eliminate grade inflation. We are giving our students a false sense of accomplishment by telling them via their grades that they are in the excellent or superior range when all they are is average. To do this, we need to better prepare teachers to constructively criticize and help students improve particularly in written and oral communication skills. That means that all teachers should be measured on the timeliness of their grading, the extent to which they give reasons to their students as to why they were graded as they were, and the opportunity for the student to discuss with them in specific terms how to make the piece better.
Parents need to be educated about what is constructive help for their children and what is simply intrusive and detrimental to the student’s achievement. They want the best for their children but often wrongly interpret that to be the grade received rather than the learning acquired.
The issues of the value of testing, grade inflation, geographic disparities in school performance, and discrimination in our system are not going away soon or easily. We must all commit to the hard road ahead and remember that, first and foremost, it is about kids!
If I can help you with the college admission’s process, please reach out to see if I have any openings in my schedule for the upcoming year.
