<p>"Students spend hours cramming for the SAT and ACT each year in the hopes of earning an acceptance letter to a competitive college. But is the tide turning away from standardized exams?"</p>
<p>Many people consider standardized testing to be a staple in the college admission process, but some universities now perceive it as irrelevant. Does standardized testing serve a true purpose in admissions, or is it really unnecessary?</p>
<p>I don’t foresee the SAT and ACT being eliminated anytime soon at a larger scale. There just isn’t a better way to compare students at a national scale while being as efficient. The article suggests that you could focus more on, extracurricular activities, GPA, or writing samples. All of which are terrible assessments for distinguishing student’s future academic success considering every high school is different and offer more or less rigorous classes/activities. Additionally, student’s chance at success will be drastically affected by their family residence since typically low-income districts’ schools offer less AP classes, less extracurriculars, and etc. I mean at least with standardized testing if you get a perfect score even at a low-income school, you stand a far better chance at being accepted into a good university.</p>
<p>Additionally, I dont really understand why people have such a problem with standardized tests especially in academia. All the complaints I hear are;
<p>It seems to me that in this era of extremely competitive admissions to many schools even outside the the “elite”, schools will look at any and all factors that help them make a decision. To that extent, if there is any evidence or reasonably definitive study that says using GPA and course rigor alone predict college performance at least as well as using the SAT/ACT as part of the process, then schools will eventually decide they don’t need those tests. It will be slow most likely, as habits and long held beliefs fall hard. I know they mentioned a study in the article, but without a reference it is hard to know how sound the methodology was for that. Apparently many schools were not convinced. I would imagine if the elite schools start to drop the test requirement, the others would follow more quickly.</p>
<p>I also don’t think “test optional” will work on a wider basis, because people with high scores will use them and there will be a strong perception, perhaps true, that it helps ones chances of admission to the more elite schools. That will put pressure on everyone to take the tests to at least see how they score.</p>
<p>I know Wake Forest and some others have stated for the record that they have seen no impact on quality by dropping the tests. I wonder if that would be as true if almost all schools dropped the test. In other words, are they getting a disproportionate share of applications from high GPA/low test score students that would be less pronounced if no one required the tests, or at least many more schools dropped the requirement? I suspect so.</p>
<p>As a side note, though, I applaud Hampshire for essentially telling USNWR to take their rankings and do something with them I cannot mention on CC. I wish Sarah Lawrence College had stuck to their guns on that as well. I do wonder what it says that they decided they had to go back to test optional instead of sticking with test blind.</p>
<p>My older son is at Hampshire. I’m very proud of Hampshire and I’m guessing they probably didn’t do much if anything with test scores even when they were test optional. And agree with you re: SLC - I was disappointed and would love to know “the rest of the story”.</p>
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<p>And what guns could those be? Guns that mean wanting to have your cake and eating it too? Sarah Lawrence misguided ambition was to avoid reporting the “lower than its peers” test scores but have no repercussions in the ranking, and accordingly continue to attract the uber-wealthy but underperforming students who flock to this bastion of elitism, but also be considered highly ranked. </p>
<p>Should USNews be criticized? Oh yes, but in this case for not having the spine and courage to implement the ONLY correct measures, namely placing all the manipulators who form the test optionals schools in a SEPARATE category. A category that should simply list such schools alphabetically and thus answers to the schools wishes to remain “untouched” by USNews! THAT would make such schools think twice! </p>
<p>For the record, Wake Forest presented quite the ambivalent image. It was one of the very last schools (with Harvey Mudd) that did not recognize the ACT. </p>
<p>In the end, there is one implacable reality. People who do well on standardized tests will look at schools that reward this performance. People who do NOT do well will look at different schools, and also applaud the pseudo scientists and crooks who populate the office of FairTest. </p>
<p>For what it is worth, it is amazing how news travels and how “media” is created. Should this shoddy article written by Justin Peligri, a rising senior at George Washington University, not be labeled as an oped or come with a warning? </p>
<p>How wonderful to see how the opinions of interns become the standard “news.” Or get featured here without any mention of the nature of the article and the lack of qualifications of the writer? </p>
<p>Were there any drawbacks for students who might be inspired to “overlook” standardized tests? Any benefits for students to take the SAT or ACT and show superior performance in a poor environment? Of course, swallowing the Schaeffer KoolAid is just easier! </p>
<p>I just don’t see how GPA and course rigor could be properly used to predict college performance considering you have public high schools that give A’s if the student just shows up and public high schools that are more rigorous than some colleges. Plus not to mention, not all high schools offer the same courses and extracurriculars. Therefore, the only feasible solution would be to try and rank high schools like how colleges are ranked which would only cause more problems because if youre a high school student and not able to afford private school or move residences then you really are at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>I mean even self-studying for AP exams doesn’t warrant any change in GPA so when you see students who took 10+ AP classes and have a 4.5+ GPA WGPA and 4.0 UWGPA they are obviously going to beat the students who attend high schools that offer 5 or less AP classes.</p>
<p>The only downside of getting punished by the US News is that colleges would potentially lose applicants. I’ve seen firsthand how international students look for colleges: go to US News, research schools ranked from 1-150, and then apply to a bunch. Sarah Lawrence isn’t even on the radar of these students who would otherwise be good fits for the school. Despite everything that’s wrong with the US News rankings, it still remains a valuable resource for students who have no idea about how to proceed.</p>
<p>“I just don’t see how GPA and course rigor could be properly used to predict college performance considering you have public high schools that give A’s if the student just shows up and public high schools that are more rigorous than some colleges. Plus not to mention, not all high schools offer the same courses and extracurriculars.”</p>
<p>This is why colleges evaluate your application in the context of your school.</p>
<p>Some form is standardized test should be required, but the duopoly of CollegeBoard and ACT needs to go. In the UK, for instance, admission to universities is based mostly on standardized tests (nothing like the SAT, however; more like APs, but more rigorous, like the IB). APs, IBs, SAT Subject Tests would make perfectly good substitutes, maybe even better. SAT-optional, but not test-optional, should be the way to go.</p>
<p>International95, allow me to address a few of your comments. Obviously, your view is one from the outside and a tiny bit biased in terms of what admissions should be. </p>
<p>For starters, “Despite everything that’s wrong with the US News rankings, it still remains a valuable resource for students who have no idea about how to proceed.” misses the boat by a mile. Actually, the worst part of the USNers is how it affects the “people who have NO idea” and will look at the mere ranking of schools. Does that apply to many internationals, and more to internationals who weigh prestige over actual education? Cannot blame them, but that is still not how the USNews should be used. </p>
<p>Is there a “best” part in the USNews? Yes, although the changes to a more online tool has greatly diminished its usefulness, which is in the UNDERLYING information. In the part, and with a tad of effort, one could download the entire ranking and reorganize the weights to the paticular case of a student’s preferences. That has become more difficult but still valuable. </p>
<p>Then there is this:</p>
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<p>While I could point out that your view of the the IB being more rigorous than the AP (unless I read this one poorly) is a matter of opinion, there is another angle to consider. Colleges do have a wealth of “local” information in the form of GPA, ranking, school profiles, as well as additional testing that are purporedly representing the high school curriculum. The latter comprising the Subject tests and the AP, and perhaps the IB when scores are available. What it would NOT have is a balancing test that indicates reasoning ability as opposed to mere rote memorization of mostly shallow subjects! </p>
<p>We should indeed have a better option than the duopoly (which is in fact merely one creator and a copycat) but this will not happen as both organizations have spent sufficient resources to maintain their stronghold. What we do need is actually a total revamping and reorganization of such tests in the form of a complete flipping between the SAT and the APs. APs should be relegated to Saturday events or to a system similar to the GRE with CAT. On the other hand, the SAT should be greatly expanded into a 3 or 4 day test that takes places at our schools in a format similar to the PSAT but at a different time. The expanded test should be a ONE TIME test. </p>
<p>Further, the expanded test should only be available on a very limited basis abroad as the actual administration overseas are prone to ubiquitous organized cheating. </p>
<p>All in all, we need a better mousetrap, but one that is based on the same contents and approach as today’s SAT. </p>
<p>To be clear, what I meant by sticking to their guns was just not caring that USNWR didn’t list them. That apparently wasn’t the case, since they caved, most likely for the reason International95 talks about. But at least as of now, knowing that they won’t be listed by USNWR and what presumably happened at SLC (and I have to imagine some conversations took place between the schools), Hampton is taking the test blind path anyway. I was in no way criticizing USNWR for not altering their methodology for SLC, so please don’t imply that I said that or even implied it. I was criticizing, in a sense, SLC for not deciding that the USNWR ranking was less important than their assessment of the value of standardized testing. And maybe the reality is that in the real world the USNWR ranking is more important for them. Which just goes to show how out of balance the value of that list has become.</p>
<p>For liberal arts I guess the holistic approach is fine. But for science math or engineering
you need to have an objective benchmark. I wouldn’t want the holistically evaluated doctor
operating on me nor the holistically evaluated computer programmer creating my
next generation Google nor the holistically evaluated engineer designing a bridge.</p>
<p>I also don’t see anything wrong with discussing an article such as this, whatever one’s opinion of its quality. It wasn’t supposed to be a highly researched thesis, it is reporting that more schools are going test optional or even (so far very limited) test blind. CC is a discussion forum. We discuss. It has to be credible for discussion, not researched to every last detail. Then people such as yourself can point out what you think the flaws are. And then others can agree or disagree. That’s the fun, and the informative aspect as well.</p>
<p>Every other country in the world uses a standardized test to determine placement into college. The whole holistic review process is a sham that originated in order to discriminate against certain groups of students.</p>
<p>Good. IMHO, standardised tests are worthless. The only thing they are a good predictor of is how well you can take a timed test in an unfamiliar environment. I’ve written so many papers about this and done a lot of research on this topic, and it seems ridiculous that schools are still requiring tests in admissions processes.</p>
<p>@CollegeBargain - To be fair, medical schools are not looking at things holistically, so what happens at undergrad admissions is fairly irrelevant to the quality of your surgeon. There may be a lot of other issues related to the quality of your surgeon, but that wouldn’t be one of them. Pretty much the same for your other two examples. No one cares what they did in high school, it will be their college record that counts. GPA and MCAT for the med student, GPA and GRE’s for the others if they go to grad school, otherwise just GPA and interviewing skills. It isn’t like they are going to let a person fresh out of undergrad, or even a master’s program, design a bridge all by themselves anyway. For that matter I wouldn’t want someone operating on me just because they got good grades and a high SAT in high school. This is only about getting into college. Your examples seem kind of off base.</p>
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<p>I did not imply anything nor did I intimate YOU criticized Morse and his acolytes. I simply addressed the sticking to your guns. SLC did not cave in. The school was not in a position to negotiate as they played with fire and got burned. They mounted a campaign to gain public support. USNews was 100 percent correct. Too bad Morse is more lenient with others. </p>
<p>The saga was discussed here when it happened. </p>
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<p>Nothing wrong except that CC used to frown upon pieces that lacked authority with the sole exception that some blog entries permeated when published by a mainstream media outlet. While USAToday fits that mold, the article is none other than a shoddily researched contribution that rehashed old news, and poorly to boot. </p>
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<p>Incredibly impressive. You might contact the USAToday contributor as he could use the many papers and research of a high school student! </p>
<p>@fallenchemist So MIT would be better served by tossing out standardized tests? That would achieve a generation of better scientists and engineers?</p>
<p>Doctors are evaluated holistically by their patients, just look online. In many cases, we like our docs for qualities that go beyond the science. And they work, to some extent, holistically. There are no simple universal answers in diagnostics and many treatments. Med school includes significant emphasis, today, on “doctoring.” </p>
<p>The test optional schools work hard to identify kids who can succeed in their environments. Some on CC think it’s some sort of cakewalk, not to have to submit scores. It’s not some magic. Bates did a 20 year study and found virtually no differences between score reporters and not. But for the competitive test optional colleges, adcoms work that much harder to spot their success predictors, for their college environments and values. </p>
<p>The tests are incomplete measures. Just as you can’t judge on the GPA number or rank, without looking at the transcript, what classes, what actual performance, etc,or the context. Sometimes, I think the only good thing about them is they tell you who took the testing seriously enough to do well on those tests. But the competitive holistic schools are still looking for their “more.” </p>