according to prepscholar,
“There are now 10 states that require every junior to take the [ACT] test and five more that either require the test in some districts or offer it as a free option for students who wish to take it.”
and " In total, 20 states (plus Washington, DC) are contracted with the College Board to administer the SAT to some or all high school juniors for free."
It is great that that is available to interested students in those states. But that is still less than half of states, so that leaves many students without such an option, unfortunately.
That may be true, but still quite problematic for students of this very populous and diverse state, should more universities again require testing for admissions. To me, this is a good reason to allow test optional admissions.
I wonder if there is a different approach by ad coms in TO schools when they are reviewing applications from students in those 20 states, where there aren’t barriers to accessing testing sites…
That is a very good question.
(And the flip side if they view California TO applicants differently based on the additional barrier of limited test site access.)
The essence of education is to be tested and to prove your knowledge on tests. The SAT is one of many tests that students will need to take. Some will do better than others. Some people are more intelligent than others. This should not be upsetting to you or anyone.
I am all for making every element of the SAT, including preparation for the test and accommodating test takers, as fair as possible across the board. We aren’t there yet. We need to do better. I support investments to prioritize this fairness.
Still, imagine a university voice/choir program that didn’t have vocal auditions. Imagine a university orchestra program that didn’t have auditions with an instrument. Imagine a university track program that didn’t time potential athletes on the track. Testing is fundamental, even if the background and preparation of the people being tested isn’t uniform. It never will be.
Shielding students from testing, when the entire educational experience has a foundation based on constant testing, is counterintuitive and counterproductive.
That standardized test scores can be helpful in making an assessment of an applicant.
That’s not my understanding of the “essence of education.” But even if it was, taking away time and resources from real classes (and real tests) is a cost too high. If colleges think they need it, then they can require it, but don’t sacrifice actual education in pursuit of the Almighty SAT Score.
Or any test for that matter, right? No tests, lottery for college, with tips for the deserving kids. Sounds like a plan?
The point of education includes acquiring basic life skills such as being able to estimate how much is a 15% tip, convert from feet to meters, and understand passages of writing. At a slightly more advanced level, that includes finding the angle of a triangle, finding the intersection of two straight lines, understanding trends in tables, and reading an article with a critical eye. All of these are part of what SAT tests and are the absolute bare minimum to do well in college, regardless of majors.
Yep. And just because a state has a one time testing day doesn’t mean kids show up and take the test…many will just skip school that day.
Even in the states where taking the test is a graduation requirement, plenty of students don’t show up on the in-school testing day, and simply take the test at some point before graduation. Some will wait until spring of senior year, which is of no help in college admissions.
20 states & DC offer SAT, 10-15 offer ACT. That’s 30-35 total.
Instead of dismissing testing because CA doesn’t make testing widely available, how about focusing attention on CA making testing widely available?
I agree that AO’s should look at TO applicants from CA differently than from other states for the time being, until barriers for testing in CA are removed.
I don’t think policies should be made around students who willfully avoid the school-day SAT/ACT.
I don’t disagree…but there’s a price to get those scores. I expect many AOs and enrollment managers agree too, but the fact remains that the majority of four year colleges (~2,000) are test blind or test optional. I expect some more schools may go back to test required, but not many…maybe a dozen? Maybe more if some state boards mandate their publics go back…looking at NC right now. Time will tell.
Are you in a better position to determine this, or are the individual schools? Because while you may see a benefit, some schools may see costs that you haven’t considered.
Can you point me to where I suggested this ro anything like it, because I don’t think I did.
This stuff is taught in Math and English courses. The reason well-resourced kids tend to do so so much better on the SAT can’t be explained by more cramming for the SAT. It is because, among other things, well-resourced kids had better Math and English teachers and courses from pre-school on. Please don’t take divert what little resources underprivileged kids have for such things into cramming for the SAT.
This is the most prolific fallacy in this entire discussion. The classes students take SHOULD be preparing them for the SAT. Many students do just fine on the SAT without any prep courses because their classes did prepare them for the SAT.
Do some schools need to do a better job with their curriculum? Of course, but their errors still do not justify a biblical level of fear related to the concept of testing.
Remember, the overwhelming majority of colleges & universities select just about everyone. And when students attend them, guess what, they will have to take tests at those schools. They will all have different backgrounds & levels of preparation, and the tests won’t be 100% fair to all students. Yet, everyone will survive.
So, as these underprivileged students get to college, all of their lack of math and English skills will be magically acquired? Or will they be playing catch up the first few years, of which some ultimately give up? Is the system then not setting them up to fail?
I have second-year engineering students who struggle with doing 25/2.5 in their head, or sketching the graph of x+y=2 (I can give more examples but I digress). If they have a better math background, such as being able to perform respectably on the SAT, they wouldn’t have fallen behind on the second week of class, ultimately failing or dropping the course.
Exactly. And not many of them require tests (nearly all are TO or test blind). These tend to also be the schools that do well on social mobility measures because students without scores or low scores can do well in college and graduate. Social mobilityis one area where the highly rejectives fall woefully short.
Several different social mobility rankings:
https://www.socialmobilityindex.org/
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/social-mobility
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-liberal-arts-colleges/social-mobility
Not sure to what you refer, or why you view my comments as some sort of mandate on testing generally. Speaking for myself I have no such fear. Id just rather students focus on actual school work (and more meaningful and focused testing) than prepping for a catch-all standardized test. You apparently feel differently.
Seems a different topic all-together, and one that has been covered repeatedly. Buried somewhere in all the posts is a fairly detailed discussion of UT Austin’s approach to teaching students from different backgrounds. If you are interested it might be worth digging up.
If they had a better math background they wouldn’t fall behind regardless of the SAT. Focusing on teaching the SAT rather than the math background puts the cart before the horse.
In the big picture, things are working like they should, with one big problem. I am fine with private universities or colleges doing whatever they want. I am fine with lower tier public schools being test optional and carrying out the social mobility function. The big problem is top tier state flagships, being run with taxpayer money, not having complete transparency. They should all be using standardized tests and coming up with cutoffs for attendance, and (especially) crystal clear guidelines (around standardized tests and GPA and/or class rank) for their most competitive majors.
Never said you did. But if testing is not valuable as a measure, why have any at all? Why have any level of academic measure to get into college then, since they would be test based. After all how can any student claim a gpa without testing.