A defense of standardized tests in college admissions
By: Daniel Kyte-Zable
For many juniors at BB&N and similarly competitive high schools, the college process formally begins with one question – ACT or SAT? Since their inception in 1959 and 1926 respectively, the two tests have served as deciding factors in college admissions and as sources of dread for students, parents and high schools alike. Recently, however, the importance of the ACT and SAT as components of admissions has been significantly reduced, a consequence of newly-waged criticisms, and standardized testing is being phased out on the whole: 1800 of the United States’ 3000 four-year universities have gone test-optional, including the vast majority of schools in US News’ Top 100. Nonetheless, standardized testing ought to be preserved due to the failure of other elements of the admissions process to impartially represent student potential and the malintent guiding the test-optional movement.
Perhaps the most levied criticism of standardized testing is that, despite promising to serve as a unified barometer of student academic ability irregardless of school background, it favors wealthy students over their less privileged counterparts. Indeed, this is a correct assessment – only richer students can afford the extremely high costs of preparatory services, test tutors and retakes, which all serve to boost students’ scores. That being said, the other key elements of the college admissions process – grades, extracurricular activities and essays – are equally subject to the power of privilege. Per a 2015 study conducted by the ACT corporation, private schools are typically more effective at preparing students for college than their public counterparts: 85% of the former’s students exceeded ACT-set benchmarks, contrasting with only 61% of the latter’s students. Private schools typically have more extreme cases of grade inflation, which artificially boosts their students odds of acceptance. Wealthy students also have access to unique extracurricular opportunities, either through their school (private schools generally have better access to resources and programs) or through internships, research gigs, or similarly “impressive” programs obtained through parental wealth or connections. Even the task of writing college essays, the aspect of admissions deliberately intended to provide students with a direct voice, can be offloaded onto a college consultant or essay writing service, provided one can afford the cost. Accordingly, a test whose content and format is uniform for all students, regardless of background, but suffers from innate imbalances seems preferable to the equally entrenched corruption of these other systems.
In addition, the influx of test-optional schools worsens the competition for institutional rankings and allows universities to assume a pretense of altruism despite malintent. Though many colleges argue that their shift to a test-optional model is to give underprivileged students a leg up, they also intend to use the change to accrue more money and jump up the ranking ladder. Because test-optional systems incentivize more students, some of whom are underqualified, to apply to specific colleges, said colleges reap significant monetary benefits from the increase in application fee revenue. Additionally, because higher ratios between the number of applicants and accepted applicants increases selectivity, test-optional programs allow colleges to abuse their way to the top of the US News ladder. Rankings are also determined by a college’s average accepted ACT and SAT scores – an increase in test-optional applicants drives up the average submitted score, thereby benefiting the applied-to institution. Notably, test-optional policies have generally failed to aid minority and other underprivileged students. A 2014 study found that, between 1992 and 2010, test-optional and test-requiring institutions received similar levels of low-income enrollment.
Test-optional policies, though heralded as a promising advancement in admissions, serve to over-emphasize the importance of other, corruptible factors, worsen the already heaving state of college competitiveness, and fail to benefit underprivileged students; therefore, they should not be preserved. Still, we must also consider that a number of reforms must be undertaken to correct existing problems. To partially avert the cost-related disparities in test scores, both the SAT and ACT should be free (enabled through government subsidies, perhaps). Additionally, content matter ought to be readjusted to better examine students’ problem-solving and critical thinking skills through the use of extended essays and/or longer STEM problems. With these measures, we will leap forward and towards a more meaningful and less corrupt system of standardized testing.
A picture of an SAT bubble sheet thousands of high school students fill out each year
