Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirements amid growing disenchantment with standardized tests - The Washington Post

Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirements amid growing disenchantment with standardized tests - The Washington Post

A record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirement amid growing disenchantment with standardized tests

For students who fear they can’t get into college with mediocre SAT or ACT scores, the tide is turning at a record number of schools that have decided to accept all or most of their freshmen without requiring test results.

Meanwhile, two Ivy League schools have decided that many of their graduate school programs do not need a test score for admissions, fresh evidence of growing disenchantment among educational institutions with using high-stakes tests as a factor in accepting and rejecting students.

And the nine-campus University of California system is studying whether to continue using test scores in admissions and, if so, which exams. Famously, a 2001 proposal by then-UC President Richard C. Atkinson to stop using the SAT for admissions spurred the College Board, which owns the test, to add an essay component in 2005 (although it was later dropped as an admissions requirement by many schools after it failed to produce the results they hoped for).

It may not quite have reached a tipping point, but the admissions world is clearly grappling with the use of standardized tests in admissions.

Research has consistently shown that ACT and SAT scores are strongly linked to family income, mother’s education level and race. The College Board and ACT Inc., which owns the ACT, say their tests are predictive of college success, but (as with many education issues) there is also research showing otherwise.

The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, a nonprofit known as FairTest, just analyzed SAT scores for the high school class of 2019. It reported that the gaps between demographic groups grew larger from a year earlier, with the average scores of students from historically disenfranchised groups falling further behind students from more privileged families.

The issue of elitism in college admissions was underscored this year by Operation Varsity Blues, a federal investigation into admissions fraud that resulted in the indictments of dozens of people, including wealthy parents and college coaches caught in schemes to create false records to secure admission to top schools. Actress Felicity Huffman is among the better-known defendants; she is serving two weeks in jail after pleading guilty to paying $15,000 for her daughter’s SAT score to be CONTINUE READING: Record number of colleges drop SAT/ACT admissions requirements amid growing disenchantment with standardized tests - The Washington Post