Should ND do away with the SAT?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Notre Dame
1

<p>I found this article on CNN this morning: </p>

<p>Jen Wang of Short Hills, New Jersey, took her first SAT when she was in sixth grade, long before she would start filling out college applications. </p>

<p>Wake Forest University recently announced it would no longer require the SAT for admissions.</p>

<p>"My family thought it was very important for me to do well on this test, and I basically obtained nearly every SAT study guide out there by the time I was a junior in high school," she said. "For Christmas one year, I received an electronic device that allowed me to practice the SAT's 'on-the-go.' "</p>

<p>After all that preparation, she ended up attending a school that has made the SAT Reasoning Test, generally known as the SAT, the most widely used college admissions exam in the United States, optional. </p>

<p>Her school, Connecticut College, is one of a growing number of colleges and universities that are making the SAT optional in the admissions process. In May, two highly selective schools -- Smith College in Massachusetts and Wake Forest University in North Carolina -- decided to drop the SAT and ACT, which some students take as an alternative to the SAT, as requirements for admission.</p>

<p>Wake Forest made the move as part of its efforts to increase socioeconomic, racial and ethnic diversity in the student body, said Martha Allman, director of admissions. Research has shown that SAT performance is linked with family income, and that the test by itself does not accurately predict success in college, she said.</p>

<p>Making the test optional "removes the barrier for those students who had everything else," like scholastic achievement and extracurricular activities, but who "maybe didn't do as well on a specific test," she said.</p>

<p>Smith College also cited the correlation between test scores and income as a motivation for making the exam optional, as well as a desire to take a more well-rounded view of applications. The changes at Smith and Wake Forest take effect for applicants seeking to enroll in the fall of 2009.</p>

<p>Several colleges and universities went test-optional in the 1990s amid concern that the test was a barrier to equal opportunity for minorities, women and low-income students, said Robert Schaeffer, public education director for FairTest. Some schools also dropped the test as a requirement with the explosion of test coaching, which gave upper-income kids an advantage.</p>

<p>Today, about 30 percent, or nearly 760 colleges and universities out of the approximately 2,500 accredited four-year institutions across America have made at least some standardized tests optional for some applicants, according to the nonprofit advocacy group FairTest. </p>

<p>Some of those schools, such as George Mason University in Virginia, still require the tests for prospective students who do not meet a particular GPA requirement in high school.</p>

<p>But Alana Klein, spokesperson for the College Board, which owns the SAT, said this is not a trend. While the news media have focused on recent moves to make the test optional, schools have been doing this for decades, and SAT test volumes are up 2 percent from last year, she said. </p>

<p>The poor performance of some low-income and minority students has to do with their lack of access to quality education, which is a national problem, but does not relate to the test itself, Klein said. The SAT is a fair test for all students, she said, and any test question that shows bias is removed.</p>

<p>"Not only is the SAT a critical tool for success in college, but also in the workforce and in life," she said. </p>

<p>At Bowdoin College, which hasn't required the SAT since 1969, the biggest benefit of the test-optional policy is the school's "unusually supportive community" where students don't compare scores, said William Shain, dean of admissions and financial aid.</p>

<p>But at this small liberal arts college in Maine, which admitted about 18 percent of applicants this year, more than 80 percent of applicants submit scores anyway, he said.</p>

<p>One of the downsides of keeping standardized tests optional is that it's harder to evaluate a large pool of candidates who all have high GPAs, he said. </p>

<p>Richard Atkinson, former president of the University of California, recommended in 2001 that the school system no longer require the SAT Reasoning Test for admission. He cited the concerns of African-Americans and Hispanics that these groups tend to perform worse on the exam than students of other ethnicities. </p>

<p>"The real basis of their concern, however, is that they have no way of knowing what the SAT measures and, therefore, have no basis for assessing its fairness or helping their children acquire the skills to do better," Atkinson said in 2001. The University of California system still requires the test today.</p>

<p>Several other schools dropped the test requirement for admissions after the revised SAT came out in 2005, after seeing that the new version did not address concerns about access and poor predictive value, FairTest's Schaeffer said.</p>

<p>Since spring 2005, 34 colleges and universities have made standardized testing optional for all applicants, according to FairTest. Four others made the requirement optional for students with a lower GPA, FairTest's data showed.</p>

<p>About 25 percent of liberal arts colleges have made a move in the test-optional direction, said Jack Maguire, chairman and founder of Maguire Associates. His consulting firm has advised certain colleges to become test-optional.</p>

<p>"I do think it improves a school's image," he said. "It shows what's important to schools, if they're really interested in increasing diversity." </p>

<p>Wang, who just finished her freshman year at Connecticut College, said she is torn on the SAT debate -- the test sharpened her vocabulary and test-taking skills, but preparation took up a lot of time that could have been spent doing other things.</p>

<p>"Applicants may take too much time on prepping for this test and their time can be better spent dedicating themselves to other activities that could show colleges what the applicants really find meaningful in their lives," she said.</p>

<p>WOW...what do you think???</p>

2

<p>And the ACT as well? I still believe that there has to be some measure for admissions--SOME measure. I do not think that sole emphasis should be placed on these tests. There are many factors that can be used to evaluate an app for admissions. Notre Dame's academic programs are challenging--if a student cannot demonstrate that they can be successful in rigorous programs in HS, then how are they going to survive at ND? I also think that the hype that has come to be associated with these tests has spun out of control in some cases. Spending that much time prepping for the test in jr high and HS is absurd. Deep down, I also want to believe that ND continues to evaluate the whole app. I am not so sure about other schools in some cases.</p>

3

<p>While the test has many problems, I think it is still very valuable. High schools are just too different, a 4.0 at one school may mean something very different than at a different school. The same is true with rank. There has to be some measure that is standardized so you can compare students with each other. I wish there was a better test, perhaps one more like the SAT II, but for now the ACT and SAT are the best we have. At least you can study for them to some extent!</p>

4

<p>Well, I think that's the whole reason schools are getting rid of it: because it's not standardized. Certain groups of students do better on it. Is there any way of ensuring that any measure is standardized? And also, the article and many other studies have shown that the SAT is not a good measure of how students do in college...the biggest impetus for getting rid of the test of all.</p>

5

<p>We were arguing this in the trasnfer forum, but its my belief that the SAT is more logic based while the ACT is more curriculm based, and since we do need so way of measuring on a standard scale, and students can take both and see which one they do better on, then it is my belief that it should stick around.</p>

6

<p>Not sure it would make much difference if Notre Dame went SAT-optional. In fact, it might make admissions even more competitive. </p>

<p>Because most schools still require the SAT, most applicants will still end up having to take it. Those who do well will surely report those scores to Notre Dame, because it can only help them in the admissions process. The admissions office will know perfectly well that those students with no SAT score on their application either got low scores, or anticipated that they would get low scores and are applying only to those schools that do not require SAT scores. By dropping the SAT requirement, the university will be encouraging MORE applications from students who don't typically excel on standardized tests, leading to a lower overall acceptance rate.</p>

7

<p>As much as I hate it, it is needed.</p>

<p>For the same reasons that Mike stated earlier.</p>

<p>However, I believe that ND places too much emphasis on the scores. They say they take a very holistic approach to the admissions, but in reality that is just not the case. Getting rid of it all together, however, is a bit much. It is that third dimension that should CONFIRM the applicants record (grades). It SHOULD NOT be used as the primary evidence for admission, as I believe ND uses now. IMO, and after studying the acceptance threads over the past few years... this is how I feel the committee does things</p>

<p>(at least for non-legacy... non-athlete... non-minoruty applicants)</p>

<p>SAT score is used as a guideline. Applicants who do not have over a 1400 have less than a 5 % admission rate. If you pass this SAT step, then that is when they start their "holistic approach". This is when the transcript/ec/ essay are evaluated and now can break the application... not make. That is why you still see kids being rejected with over a 1500.... but never accepted with around a 1300. They want that SAT score.... they need that SAT score. If your are a white, non-legacy applicant... you need the SAT score.</p>

<p>Of course there are some exceptions.... but they are extremely EXTREMELY few are far between.</p>

<p>Notre Dame will never, ever get rid of it because of how vital it is to their admission approach.</p>

8

<p>I think what Tim said is pretty true about SAT's being essential to the ND admissions process. Several people at my school were waitlisted at ND whose GPA's and class rigor were about as high/most difficult as possible, but their SAT's were <2200 and they were white, non-legacies.</p>

<p>I think the problem for such applicants is not that ND is using the SAT as a criterion but that the admissions office places too much emphasis on legacies and URM's, who are held to much lower standards (someone on the class of 2012 thread scored around 1850 and got in [legacy]).</p>

<p>This means that for the normal white kids who just want to go to Notre Dame, you better have a 2200+. It's kind of sad that it has to be done this way, since so many well-qualified, deserving applicants that are being accepted to amazing schools like Georgetown, Vanderbilt, and Berkeley are being shunned away in favor of legacy applicants who score <2000.</p>

<p>Bottom line--ND admissions are far from fair, but I don't think they should do away with the SAT because I feel that it reveals a lot about an applicant's capability for college-level work. However, throwing out applicants who score in the 2100's simply because they are white and unhooked seems a bit ridiculous to me, since the difference between a 2150 and a 2250 is really quite marginal.</p>

9

<p>I really dont see ND ever going SAT-Optional, I think they value the SAT more than a lot of peer schools.</p>