NYT: College Panel Calls for Less Focus on SATs

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The commission’s report, the culmination of a yearlong study led by William R. Fitzsimmons, the dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard, comes amid growing concerns that the frenzy over standardized college admissions tests is misshaping secondary education and feeding a billion-dollar test-prep industry that encourages students to try to game the tests.</p>

<p>A growing number of colleges and universities, like Bates College in Maine, Lawrence University in Wisconsin, Wake Forest University in North Carolina and Smith College in Massachusetts, have made the SAT and ACT optional. And the report concludes that more institutions could make admissions decisions without requiring the SAT and ACT.</p>

<p>It encourages institutions to consider dropping admission test requirements unless they can prove that the benefits of such tests outweigh the negatives.

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<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Just a couple of notes:
The commission was launched by NACAC.
Besides being a long-time Dean of Admissions at Harvard, Fitzsimmons has also served for a long time on the Board of Trustees of the College Board.</p>

<p>And my thought is that the take-home point for parents is that perhaps more emphasis will be placed on subject-specific tests such as the SAT Subject Tests or the AP tests or the IB tests, which would make United States college admission look more like college admission in many other developed countries.</p>

<p>tokenadult, you might be right, but that won't happen over night. It is mostly the upper tier schools currently require SAT subject tests now, and some of those do not currently require SAT subject tests. Also, many high schools do not offer AP classes, or limited numbers of AP classes, so that might not work well. Also, there are many college bound students who do not take APs, or take one AP in high school.</p>

<p>Did it really take this long to figure it out? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the SAT is nothing but a game to most students.</p>

<p>I don't know what the answer is, but the de-emphasis on these tests is music to my ears. Our tiny college-prep school can't offer AP classes, but does offer honors classes that are rigorous, and our graduates are very successful in college. My sons did well on the ACT, without prep, and felt they were fairly straightforward--except for the timing issue, but the SAT subject tests, (math level 1 and literature) un-prepped, were like reading a foreign language for them, and they performed quite badly. S2 took the tests a week apart, and I have a hard time believing he got considerably smarter (for the ACT) in a week!</p>

<p>I think that the SATs or some other standardized, anonymous test or tests ought to continue to be <em>part</em> of the college admissions picture.</p>

<p>There are kids who are very bright, very independent, and not adept at kissing ass or generally pleasing the teachers and the administration, and they generally are not the favored ones who automatically get all of the popularity-based prizes and opportunities in high schools. They also are not routinely given the benefit of the doubt in grading, as the favorites are.</p>

<p>They need an arena in which they can show their stuff intellectually without being seen through the prism of high school bureaucracy.</p>

<p>As I said to this point in another thread, this has been debated for years, not just now. It comes to the fore every few years. The problem is that it is a trade off (for better or worse) between and objective measure and subjective measures. Each has problems, can miss the mark and be subject to abuse. If they can it, what would it do to the importance of other measures (e.g., GPA) which many people have problems with because of comparability (see the cc threads on this issue). The truth is there is probably no easy way to do this at a reasonable cost. If I were in HS now, I would not get my hopes up that these tests will be gone soon.</p>

<p>I agree with hikids. Also, I do not see the SAT IIs as the answer either. My son did not take them. A friend's D did take them. She was given prep classes for those through her high school. I can just see the test prep industry selling prep classes for the SAT IIs or any other standardized test that would come along. As you can see from SJTH's post, AP tests are also not the answer. Frankly, I agree with Consolation too. If we throw out all standardized tests, is the student from an easy A hs at an advantage? How about the student who plays to the teacher with personality and has been rewarded with high grades in many college prep classes for the neatest artwork on projects (I am not talking about art classes, but English, history, foreign language, etc.)? Those issues are out there. It is a trade off, and I think the pendulum will keep swinging.</p>

<p>Putting less focus on SATs would be a bloody disaster.
If there is statistical evidence that people who live in poorer areas do worse on the SATs...
(A simple hypothesis test would do the trick here.)
..why don't we start using economics-based affirmative action policies?</p>

<p>For the elite schools, someone who has 1400 and comes from a family making $30K a year should be given similar preference to someone who has a 1500 and comes from a family making $100K a year. </p>

<p>This, and better financial aid policies, would also bring out much-needed economic diversity in our elite schools.</p>

<p>In this policy, the kid with the perfect 1600 who comes from a low-income family should be given preference because if income really is a factor in terms of reasoning abilities- this kid proved that his reasoning abilities are most superior.</p>

<p>I say this as someone who fervently believes that those who are "adept at kissing ass or generally pleasing the teachers and the administration" are ruining the intellectual atmosphere of our universities. These types are rampant at all the top colleges. They are aggressive and opportunistic and easily gain leadership skills which make them more attractive to top universities- despite only having that 1340. This isn't true for all people who don't ace the SAT of course.
A reason why we should start using economics-based affirmative action.</p>

<p>For years this site fairly laughed at Sarah Lawrence College's position on standardized testings while SLC fell in the college rankings done by Princeton Review and the others. Arguments were hot and heavy here about what not requiring standardized testing meant for any school bold enough to take that step. Most here thought is made the school less competitive which somehow reflected on students at those schools as less-capable or their applicants as less-qualified candidates. </p>

<p>My NMSQT-winning student felt strongly that her college choice was the best for her even if it ignored standardized testing. If more kids made their choice based on what is best for them rather than what schools ranked the best or had the highest composite SAT scores, the world would be a much better place——for our kids and ourselves. Standardized testing is at the root of the evil. I'm not sure what the alternative is but I'd love to begin by stopping the slamming of those schools who make such test optional for admission by those here who claim that makes those schools less "desirable" from a prestige standpoint or by some selectivity index based solely on test scores. Myopia is considered curable these days.</p>

<p>Proud Dad, I haven't heard anyone slamming Bates and Bowdoin because they went SAT-optional. If anything, Bowdoin's general standing seems to have gone up.</p>

<p>I wonder if the members of the panel will have courage of their convictions and do a study of how much high school course grading policies "calcify" distinctions of income among students.</p>

<p>Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Sarah Lawrence College openly criticized U.S News while Bates and Bowdoin didn't. Hence, why SLC got slammed more.</p>

<p>It's rare that high school grading policies calcify distinctions of income among students.
However, we must remember that grading isn't entirely objective and this is a possibility- it is a subjective decision made for subjective reasons.
Standardized testing is all we truly have for gauging a college applicant's intellectual abilities. There have been many complaints that the SAT favors high-income applicants because they have more resources.
I think this may play a slight role- it is no secret that more wealth allows for more opportunities for intellectual development.
This is why I favor economics-based affirmative action.
Top colleges should be accepting those who are the most intelligent naturally not those who are the best at playing the system.</p>

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At least someone had the balls to challenge the system. The next generation won't even know who should get the credit. ;)</p>

<p>Someday pontificators on this site won't recommend SAT-optional schools as just "safeties", and all schools will be judged on how well they fit an applicant's needs and wants. And maybe there won't be any wars, either. We can always dream.</p>

<p>I think we have to acknowledge that the SAT was adopted to instill some fairness to the selection process for schools that were almost entirely the province of the upper class. In my view, it is still the low-income kid's best shot at gaining entrance to top schools - much better than a series of subject tests would be. Why? Because the SAT is a reasoning test, lasts a morning, and does not require a rigorous hs curriculum to ace. This move toward multiple subject tests will put the disadvantaged at more of a disadvantage and the advantaged at more of an advantage. Subject tests really can be prepped for - and it's the wealthy that can purchase the prepping for their kids.</p>

<p>There are so many layers to these issues. Wasn't adding the writing section to the SAT suppose to solve everything? That just has everyone screaming over how long the test has become. What is being proposed now is essentially also adding a chemistry section, a history section, etc. . . More testing, not less. Silliness.</p>

<p>I think if colleges are going to claim that they dislike the SAT because they have concern for the less well off, we should look directly at the socioeconomic profile of each college. What if it were found that SAT-optional colleges actually have less socioeconomic diversity in their enrolled classes than colleges that frankly regard SAT scores as one element of making admission decisions? Some of the research sources I can find readily online suggest, preliminarily, that SAT-optional colleges have WORSE socioeconomic diversity than SAT-regarding colleges in both the national liberal arts college category (especially) and the national university category (where many of the universities with the highest numbers of poor students are state universities that require either SAT or ACT scores as an element of a complete application file). This deserves further research.</p>

<p>^ I actually think the biggest SAT haters out there at this point are not the advocates of the economically disadvantaged but rather the very wealthy parents of kids who aren't getting top SAT scores no matter how much prepping is purchased. I know that sounds mean but having had my kids at a very wealthy private hs for a few years, I have noticed the greatest outrage over the SAT is among the most wealthy families whose kids are not getting into Ivies, mainly because "they don't test well." The immigrant non-wealthy scholarship kids at this school love the SAT - it is their ticket to opportunity.</p>

<p>And Mondo is right - high school politics can be ridiculous and GPA can be gamed far more readily than the SAT.</p>

<p>The SAT really is the only objective tool that we have for intellectual assessment. School work isn't a measure of intellect -- it's a combination of work ethic and ass kissing. </p>

<p>In math classes, we usually have things like, "calculate the derivative", or "find the variance of this set of data". But on the SAT, the trick is to apply basic stuff (arithmetic through algebra 2) in pretty novel ways -- which is the real measure of one's math abilities.</p>

<p>Same with english. It's always plot summary or "describe something" from the book. CR is no ********, "read this and make proper, logical inferences". </p>

<p>Then again, I'm biased because I did well on the SAT and my GPA sucks.</p>

<p>I think mammall is right on target. When the Dean of Admissions for a school whose AVERAGE freshman has a 99th percentile SAT score says "Let's get rid of the SAT" what else can one conclude except he's looking for wiggle room to accept kids with low SAT scores --- which is something he can do NOW if the admission aids social or economic or racial (or whatever) diversity.</p>