Make SAT testing universally optional: Pros and Cons discussion

Parent Cafe
1

I’ve been reading about the history of the SAT test and am interested in discussing the pros and cons of the requirement from academic and cultural values perspectives. An increasing number of 4-year higher education institutions are becoming SAT optional or flexible, currently about 850. That’s significantly about 28% of the roughly 3000*.

I’m personally opposed to the requirement as I believe that success in high school, passion, extra-curricular activities and sometimes personal history (only when offered) are the best predictors of academic performance in college. A number just makes ranking and selection convenient, yet ranks what?

from an interview with Nicholas Lemann author of “The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy”

(Conant and Chauncey fathered the SAT)

*** "Do you think that Conant’s vision or Henry Chauncey’s vision has been corrupted or perverted? Or do you think it has been fulfilled?

I think if Conant were alive, and you asked what he would say. He would say, the system works in a certain way very, very well. What it does very, very well is produce highly trained professionals who are the best in the world. America has really good professors. It has really good doctors. It has really good scientists. It’s very important to Conant to create a group of highly skilled technicians at the top of the society. That would be, I think, the thing he was proudest of.

I think there’s no way he could look at America today and say, my dreams of a classless society have been–have been fulfilled. I think what would disappoint him is that the system turned out to be, you know, more friendly to the creation and preservation of inherited privilege than he dreamed. And much less friendly to the kind of, you know, big government, liberal society that he wanted to create.

How has test prep changed over the years?

When I was growing up in Louisiana, I was very vaguely aware of test prep, and nobody I knew took test prep. Nobody really worried that much about this whole process. In the world I’m in now on the East Coast, test prep is one of the Stations of the Cross for the upper-middle class of America. And it seems like everybody takes test prep. And everybody has a sort of testing awareness. Even shockingly little kids. There just is this culture of obsession about the SATs that is creepy and unhealthy. It really distorts education because it leads to a very instrumental view of education, that education is about what scores you get on these tests. And it kind of undervalues things like going off and reading a book.

Towns, particularly suburban towns, go insane over their average test scores. Not just SATs but other tests too. I live in a town where the good news is, everybody goes to public school, and the bad news, if it is bad news, is test scores are just supremely important. And the reason they’re important is because of real estate values."

2

Some of the schools listed as test optional or flexible are only test optional for some students. E.g. the California State Universities do not require SAT or ACT scores if a California resident applicant in high school has a 3.0 GPA and is applying to a non-impacted major at a non-impacted campus. But many majors are impacted, and most campuses are impacted.

Some of the other ones are specialty ones (e.g. art, music, religion) where traditional academic criteria may not be very applicable. Others are non-selective open admission schools.

So the number of “general” four year schools that are truly test optional is likely significantly smaller than 28%.

For what it is worth, a Harvard admissions dean has stated in http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/harvarddean-part2/ (in 2009):

Unfortunately for Harvard, the SAT and ACT have the market power of incumbency, so requiring SAT subject tests probably screens out some low income first generation students who just did not hear about them from counselors, parents, peers, etc… Harvard now says that SAT subject tests are recommended instead of required.

3

The 28% could still hold as I think the ‘roughly 3000’ total includes those specialty schools, all 4-year colleges.

4

Yes, but the specialty schools and non-selective open admission colleges are disproportionately represented among the 28% listed as test optional.

5

Many people think that the test optional schools are ones that have seen the light and now view the SAT and ACT as not capable of illuminating the talents and skills of some students. But unfortunately, as enlightening as that might be, it is not what is driving the test optional movement. The test optional movement is driven by money. Many schools fail to reach their desired numbers. These schools show up on the list of schools still looking for students in May. It isn’t that they did not get enough applications but that they did not get enough applications from full pay potential students with good scores. They know that there are plenty of applicants with bad scores who would make it through their curriculum The trouble is that those bad scores would lower their test averages (25%-75%) on the Common Data Set and that would lower their rank on the US News and World Report rankings. So they are losing a lot of potential full pay students so their ratings stay high. What do you do? What do you do? So, how about allowing those who scored low to apply without their scores. And if they are full pay, accept them. That way the low scores won’t screw up the schools ranking on US News and World Report. The result is the Full Pay no Score movement! (But if you are looking for financial aid, forget no score. For those schools, the scholarship students usually have very high scores to compensate for the low or no score full pay students).

6

@lostaccount
How do you know what drives ALL colleges to choose the test optional/flexible path? Each one of them?

Clearly, US News has FULL control of college admissions policy at hundreds of colleges in America. My goodness … so much power! And ALL and ONLY those students who are FULL PAY are admitted. Really! How did you get so much detailed admissions information about all those test optional/flexible colleges?

I hope that college administrators have more on their minds.

If there were no SAT or ACT, would that be such a great loss?

Or have all college administrators fallen prostrate before the US News rankings and the College Board? I doubt that.

How does this further college’s primary aim of education? Ideally match students with colleges?

I think it’s US News and the College Board that are all about the money.

7

“Make?” These are often private institutions that have successfully managed their own existences for hundreds of years. The perogative to make a private college anything, within constitutional limits – and constitutionally consistent statutory limits – rests with their trustees.

8

@lostaccount mentioned several strategic reasons for going test-optional. While not every school succumbs, those incentives are real. It should be noted, though, that a select few schools such as Bowdoin were test optional before US News started ranking colleges.

GPA is an imperfect indicator of success at any level. It is meaningful, to be sure, but it is not perfect. Just because the correlation between HS GPA and college GPA is higher than the correlation between the SAT score and college GPA does not mean that the SAT score has no probative value. To the extent that GPA measures mastery of material, we should indeed care about the GPA. But students can also affect the GPA by choice of courses, ingratiating teachers and lobbying for higher grades. Moreover, part of the course grade may reflect class participation and busy work.

As grade inflation and grade compression become close to ubiquitous in high school, the SAT serves as a useful check, albeit an imperfect one. I realize that certain colleges have done studies claiming that the students who do not submit the SAT score do somewhat better in college. There are reasons to take such studies with a grain of salt. They are not randomized controlled experiments. Selection bias is a big issue in such cases.

9

Look at this entertainingTED talk by Nathan Kuncel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv_Cr1a6rj4

By being able to pick out the truly talented from the well rehearsed, standardized testing becomes an obstacle to the attempt by an elite to keep the best jobs “all in the family”. Randall Collins talked about it as far back as the 80s with the publication of The Credential Society (1979). This goes a long way in explaining the rise of the elite colleges, dumbing down of the SAT, holistic admission and the like.

For those in the middle class, SAT is your friend, not your enemy. For the poor? It doesn’t matter one way or the other.

10

If you eliminate the standardized testing how then do you account for the different rigor of high schools? A B+ from high school X does not always equal a B+ from high school Y. I thought that was one purpose of the SAT, the Subject Tests and AP tests.

I am also wondering if making the SAT “optional” really solves anything. If you have 2 students applying to the same college with almost identical stats and other qualifications, and one takes the SAT and does very well and the other skips it, would a college be more inclined to take the student who took the SAT? Certainly it gives them one more data point to predict college readiness.

11

Re #9

The more selective test optional colleges are probably free riding on the use of SAT and ACT by other colleges and some of their own applicants. If a student with no tests applies, but others with tests from the same high school apply, then the others’ test scores will show what the college uses the test scores for (which is to gauge the high school for grade inflation and rigor).

12

Perhaps not, but that doesn’t strengthen your argument.

Professors, doctors, and scientists all have to take grad/professional school tests, in this case, the GRE, MCAT, and GRE, respectively, before they can become “really good” at anything. So, eliminating undergrad entrance tests does noting for Conant’s dream; they still have to take Grad admissions tests.

13

Several hundred (thousand?) schools “believe” differently. And since they hold the keys to the front door, you have to play by their rules.

OTOH, if you feel so strongly, don’t apply to such colleges. There are plenty that “believe” as you do.

I put believe in quotes bcos your belief is meaningless when colleges have tons of research data to indicate that test scores help them craft a ‘better’ class (however they define it). If it didn’t benefit the colleges, they would not use the scores.

Incidentally, what about the 3.3 student who struggled for a year or two, but then got into a groove with some A’s. A strong test score in such a case gives the college a comfort level that the kid could do the work.

14

Standardized tests are not going away. Selective “test optional” schools offer this option because they don’t have to include unsubmitted scores in their published averages. This policy keeps the schools looking competitive on paper while allowing them some flexibility in admissions. It’s not done to benefit the bright, hardworking kid who just doesn’t test well. Kids who don’t submit scores must have other things going for them, such as a very rigorous HS curriculum and good grades, interesting ECs, etc. And @ucbalumnus is right. Colleges can make a good guess about your likely SAT score range by looking at your zipcode.

The SAT came into being as a way for smart kids from the sticks who didn’t go to prep school to prove they were college-ready. Some schools are not rigorous, and there is such rampant grade inflation in many that a good GPA means nothing without some other context provided by standardized testing.

15

So if you have 3 students from the same high school applying to the same “test optional” college, and 2 have taken the SAT and done well, what is the motivation for the college to accept the one who did not take it at all? Assuming that GPA and other qualifications of all 3 were about the same. As an applicant I would not feel competitive in that scenario if I was the student who opted out of the exam.

I think it is a risky way to proceed, especially for the more competitive schools where the pool is strong. Strong students are not going to shy away from standardized testing.

16

Almost all countries in the world use standard tests exclusively for college admission. In this regard, America is the exception. I wonder why.

17

Canadian universities do not appear to need external standardized tests for their domestic applicants, probably because high school courses and curricula are more standardized and “trustworthy”, at least at the province level.

18

The variability in grading among schools means the SAT is needed, although I think subject tests are more informative.

If they were discontinued, I think the Ivies would make their own test and we would be back at square one.

19

@Canuckguy

I finally watched the Ted Talk you suggested and then watched a few others on the same issue. Here’s one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otlmKZeNi-U None of the Above - Why Standardized Testing Fails: Bob Sternberg

What I got out of your’s, re-posted so others can easily find it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv_Cr1a6rj4 is that high test scores correlate really well with elite achievement. What it doesn’t tell me is how many elite achievers got high test scores or what tests they may have taken. Nor does it describe the education they received, or … it doesn’t tell me anything else at all. In fact it seems very simplistic, rather mindless data reporting.

The video I posted, "None of the Above … " takes a, yes condensed, but more comprehensive perspective of the issue and points to what the speaker concludes tests should rather be screening for and more effective way of identifying and nurturing talent.

When a lot of money is invested in and made from a product, SAT tests, when the customer base, high school students primarily, is captive, when the product is so convenient and easy to use, there is little incentive for most to fundamentally question it. Given how computing is evolving, I wonder if this testing system will be replaced in the next decade of so?

Is the College Board and US News rankings contributing to or detracting from the overall quality of tertiary education?

20

This is what ‘The Making Caring Common Project’ at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education has to say about college admissions priorities. You have to do some reading, but it’s well worth your time.

The 2016 report:
“Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern For Others And The Common Good Through College Admissions”

http://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/collegeadmissions

from "Turning the Tide … " which includes the recommendation to make tests optional

“Recommendation #4:
Options for Reducing Test Pressure
Admissions offices and other stakeholders should work together to reduce unfair advantages and reduce undue pressure associated with admission tests (SAT and ACT). Options for reducing this pressure include: making these tests optional, clearly describing to applicants how much these tests “count” and how they are considered in the admissions process, and discouraging students from taking an admissions test more than twice. Colleges and testing companies should convey that taking the test more than twice is very unlikely to significantly improve students’ scores. Colleges should provide data that validate how scores are related to academic performance at their particular institution.”