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[quote]
A commission convened by some of the countrys most influential college admissions officials is recommending that colleges and universities move away from their reliance on SAT and ACT scores and shift toward admissions exams more closely tied to the high school curriculum and achievement.
The commissions 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.
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.
<p>" .... 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>It looks like MORE reliance on SAT Subject Tests, AP tests, and IB tests (or some kind of new and improved test) to me. That would bring the United States into line with most other countries, which have an extensive battery of subject-specific tests for college admission.</p>
<p>Nothing can change fast enough to change the rules for this year. Look at the website of each college you are interested in to be sure of this year's rules, and you should be fine for applying this year.</p>
<p>Don't count on this in the short run, or even the long run. If they get eliminated people will complain about the subjectivity and over weighting of other things like GPA. For example, looks like guys tend to get lower GPA's than girls according to some recent studies. So using that is not so good.</p>
<p>Let's get some more opinions on this! Dam GCF, exposing people to information that they would otherwise never even know about it. I prefer being ignorant, that way I can still think the SAT is important and do well October 4th.</p>
<p>SAT is still important - and will be for at least a number of years. Colleges are conservative institutions, and to replace (or remove) one heavy criteria of the selection process will take most of them quite some time.</p>
<p>We don't know yet how the College Board will react to this edict. They are in a really hot water. If only Subject tests are left why would anybody bother with PSAT? The CB will be hit with an enormous financial loss. The CB and ETS must be frantically looking right now for a solution to postpone the demise of the SAT. Will they revamp the test again? It might be a hard sell to colleges though because the CB would have to prove that revived SAT is a better predictor of college success than subject tests and other factors.</p>
<p>We are watching history in the making.</p>
<p>Meanwhile shiomi, you do have to continue considering the SAT a big thing and nail it on October 4th - you seem to be in a dam good shape for that fit. :)</p>
<p>^Hahaha, it's cool :P. Thanks for the vote of confidence though. Now that you mention it, it will be pretty interesting to see how CB responds to this. I guess the CB is somewhat focused on profit, which appears to belie its non-profit status.</p>
<p>I really believe that admissions testing should be based on subject based testing.
For example, in England all the schools rely on IB scores and AP scores for acceptance. We really should change the model to be more like that.
Also i think that AP tests should be scored like SATs and they should not use the 1-5 system. the difference between a low 5 and a high 4 aren't very big but with a 1-5 system is looks big.
they need to further break down the percentiles and scoring system</p>