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.
A school’s official policy on testing is not necessarily indicative of how it views standardized tests. Many schools play games with the policy, like they do with so many other parts of the process. That’s their right, but I don’t give their publicly stated SAT policies much credence in determining the actual effectiveness of standardized testing.
Procter & Gamble is better positioned than I am to determine current consumer product trends, but it doesn’t mean I believe them when they tell me that Puffs are better than Kleenex.
Many posters on this board, and in this thread, make some wild assumptions.
I’ve heard people say that if you make college admissions to highly selective institutions a pure meritocracy, then you will be left with robots attending these top schools! As if high SAT & high GPA kids NEVER have artistic or athletic abilities and passions.
This wild assumption is similar…this unfounded belief that a high school education that is well-rounded and valuable is completely at odds with (and mutually exclusive to) a high school education that would prepare a student to do well on the SAT.
Why are these any different than non-top tier publics? They are there primarily for their state’s students and providing an education for them…improving social mobility is one of their main goals, for any number of reasons. They also need to be affordable, and well, that’s not going so well in many states. These public colleges (or any college) can’t fix K-12 education, they are merely trying to deal with the hand that’s been dealt them.
Everything about every level of education is about testing That’s it. That is the whole deal.
Many people have an irrational focus on certain tests because they are important, and people hate coming to terms with the fact that some kids are smarter than other kids, and life isn’t always 100% fair for everyone.
Huh! I’m not anti test; there are many situations in which testing is appropriate and even helpful for learning. But this is going a bit far!
What about projects, problem sets, papers, labs, research, other creative work products like stories and art works… ? There are plenty of activities that are both educational and evaluated by teachers, but aren’t “tests.”
If a professor tells you that, “There will be no tests this semester. The only grades will be projects.” Guess what, the projects are your tests. The same as a class that will only have term papers…those are your tests. You will always have your worked evaluated. You will always be tested. This is just reindeer games with semantics.
I see no difference between the mission of any of the publics, flagship or directional. I couldn’t care less that some public schools don’t have transparent admissions criteria…but I’m sure others do and can advocate for the change they want to see. People have to choose their battles and all.
Irresponsibility is not a reason to drop testing as a required component of a college application. Failure to test in a timely manner if adequate opportunities are offered is a result in itself.
If you think projects and term papers are tests … then I’m EVEN MORE CONFUSED about what you want, because you are saying that college admission should be based on tests … but you don’t want it based on grades based on projects and term papers (that are tests)?
I am not trying to argue, but this has left me sincerely confused by your posts.
Edited to add: And with this very expanded idea of what counts as a test, wouldn’t college admission essays and other “holistic” components of an application also be counted as tests?
No one said that…these schools have cited many many reasons that support their test optional/test blind standardized testing policies. No one needs to recap that here.
I posted what I did because there are many posters on this thread (and others merely reading this thread) who don’t understand and/or aren’t aware of all of the issues surrounding standardized testing.
A professor can use a quiz to evaluate a student’s understanding of the material.
A professor can use a project to evaluate a student’s understanding of the material.
A professor can use a term paper to evaluate a student’s understanding of the material.
They all test the student’s knowledge. They all serve as tests.
College admissions are based on all forms of evaluating and testing students; their high school tests, their high school projects, their high school papers and standardized tests. I never said anything that relates to this confusing statement, “but you don’t want it based on grades based on projects and term papers (that are tests)”
So if there are a wide variety of tests available…schools choosing not to use to SAT/ACT still have plenty of ways of evaluating applicants. And every schools should be able to decide their method of choice?
Glad we’ve all come to agreement, thread resolved?
With this I agree. And, as more and more schools return to requiring SAT we should recognise that they are doing so for a reason. Many schools never required any testing - more power to them
Too funny! If we trusted all those various assessments, we wouldnt need standardized tests to begin with. Since there is no reason whatsoever for anyone to trust the 29,000 different high schools different assessments, we need a standardized tool.
This is actually the heart of the matter. Everyone is fine with high school classes having tests, quizzes, graded projects, graded papers, etc. The same for college classes.
What is so scary about the SAT? Why are so many people afraid and angered by this one test?
People want to clutch on to their fantasies about their own kids. A standardized test is a big lightning bolt of reality. It’s definitive on a large scale.
