By Andy Matarrese
Standardized tests - like the SAT and ACT exams the University of Portland requires for admission - can help college admission professionals make sound admission decisions.
If the tests are used properly.
A new report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), a prominent association of university admissions professionals, says among other things, that some colleges rely too heavily on standardized tests to determine acceptance. The resulting overreliance can limit access to higher education for some of the brightest applicants, discriminate against minority and poor students, and limit the amount of intellectual diversity in colleges, creating "cookie cutter" students.
According to the authors of the report, standardized tests should not be considered as the sole predictor for college success. The term "college success" offers so much breadth in its definition - which includes GPA, degree attainment and the acquisition of different skills - that standardized tests are insufficient at predicting it.
The publication of the study in September came as another chapter in the ongoing debate over the validity of standardized tests, which have become an increasingly important factor regarding undergraduate admissions as the number of applicants nation-wide rise.
Standardized tests have come under increasing fire, facing charges of discriminating against some groups and, due to the growing number of tests American students have to take, tests like the SAT and ACT may only be testing a student's ability to take standardized tests.
?Forgoing tests entirely
Some schools have even dropped the standardized test score requirement.
According to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, more than 700 colleges do not require either the ACT or SAT. Most of these colleges aren't that competitive. However, according to Inside Higher Ed (an online news source), and FairTest (a group that advocates standardized test reform), 24 schools listed in the U.S. News and World Report top 100 national liberal arts colleges as schools have forgone the standardized test requirements.
Director of Institutional Research Karen Nelson said multiple schools that have dropped the test requirement, such as Bates and Sarah Lawrence, have not seen a drop in the quality of applicants. Nelson noted these schools already had good reputations and high academic requirements.
According to Inside Higher Ed, some schools, like Gutavus Adolphus College and College of the Holy Cross, have actually seen improvements in the quality of their recruiting classes.
?Abuses of the tests
The report also admonished the abuse of standardized test scores as tools for rating colleges, namely by organizations like U.S. News and World Report (author of an oft-controversial college rating list) and bond agencies, the latter of which use test results as a kind of credit score for schools.
"It's way out of line in terms of importance," Thomas Greene, education professor, said, adding that rating colleges using test scores only measure the kinds of students attracted to the school and their ability level upon enrollment.
The NACAC report echoes the sentiment, saying that such ranking places undue pressure on admissions offices to pursue higher test scores. The report also says that neither the SAT nor the ACT have ever been reliable indicators of an institution's financial health.
"People worship data," Greene said. Standardized tests, since they offer quantifiable and calculable results are easy to turn into easy-to-process statistics.
"It's always nice to have the numbers and quantifiable stuff out there," he said. "It's the interpretation and the uses of the data that are just as important as the data itself - even more important."
According to Greene, it would be more helpful, and honest, if those ratings were based on the students' information upon graduating college.
The report cites incorrect use of standardized tests by college admissions employees.
Admission counselors, sometimes, for the sake of expediency, attach more weight to standardized test score than they really merit when measuring an applicant's ability, education professor Karen Eifler said.
Eifler compared the problem to a doctor assuming a diagnosis of a horrible disease after a patient registers low blood pressure.
"You ask some more questions to get at the root of what's going on," Eifler said. Just as low blood pressure does not necessarily indicate a serious illness, a low SAT score does not presuppose low potential in college.
?Cases for the tests
Standardized tests, however, do have their advantages.
"Standardized tests are an efficient way to solve a problem," Eifler said. That problem, she explained, is to easily and cost-effectively assess college-bound students' ability to succeed in college.
The report concedes the same facts, recognizing the sheer number of applicants that some colleges have to deal with. Additionally, the report applauds that standardized tests can offer an avenue for admission to college for otherwise under-performing students who score well.
Also, standardized tests like the ACT and SAT offer comparative information to admissions offices, for which there is no substitute.
The tests measure basic reasoning, numeracy, reading comprehension and vocabulary, and according to Eifler, have historically been able to predict first-year college GPAs fairly well.
?What's being tested?
The correlation, though, between standardized test scores and first-year college GPAs is dropping, said Eifler.
While the test has historically been a decent predictor of success, Eifler said that the test does not accurately measure for the qualities that college professors want in students, things like creativity or imagination.
The problems with that, according to Eifler, would be the prohibitively large cost of administering so many intensive tests, which would need legions of readers for grading. There would also be the problem of figuring out what to test for.
"Agreeing on what would be the traits that we want would be a whole different thing, but I don't even want to think about how hard that would be," Eifler said.
Greene, the education professor, added that as society changes, the tests may not be keeping up, measuring skills or presenting questions that aren't relevant.
Trends like this, combined with increased pressure on K-12 schools to focus on accountability over what is good for students and their education have created, according to some critics, an overemphasis on the tests, and may be hurting the American education system as well.
Greene said that the education system in America, from elementary school to college, is creating a particular profile for success, limiting the diversity of thought in American universities.
"The kids, and the schools, and our society are missing opportunities, I think," Greene said. "The cookie-cutter kind of approach to education doesn't serve us well as a society."
?Education and the big picture
The drive for accountability and quantifiable success in education has, according to Greene, endangered the United States' place on the cutting edge.
On a visit to England, Greene noticed that British schools had moved from the accountability model and instead worked to encourage creativity and imagination.
"The agenda is about 180 degrees different back in the states," Greene said.
There are two reasons Britain tries to foster creativity over enforcing accountability, according to Greene.
"Manufacturing can be done elsewhere," he explained. Creativity and innovation have been one of America's strengths, and limiting the diversity of experience by relying too heavily on test scores threatens those qualities.
"When there's too much interpretation put on it there's a narrowing of what we define as success," he said.
Making better tests
A ll was not lost for standardized testing, according to the committee's report.
The study found that colleges and universities might be better served by admissions test that are more closely linked to high school curriculum.
The report cited examples of tests like the College Board's AP and Subject Tests, or the International Baccalaureate tests.
"Their use in college admission," says the report, "sends a message to students that studying their course material in high school, not taking extracurricular test prep courses that tend to focus on test-taking skills, is the way to do well on admissions tests and succeed in a rigorous college curriculum."
Reconfiguring the tests to match more to what students actually learn in high school may eliminate some of the disparities that occur along economic lines that occurs with standardized tests.
"In the old days, (test prep) was sort of part of your high school education," Eifler said. Test prep has become a big business as test scores have become more popular, with some families spending up to $40,000 on college coaches, Eifler said.
The ability for some families to afford test prep, according to some critics, puts students who cannot at an inherent disadvantage.
"If a family is able to spend that kind of money with test prep and résumé building, they probably have a lot of other advantages anyway," Eifler said.
?Better admissions
"Whenever possible, multiple measures of academic achievement, as opposed to test scores alone, should be used when screening and selecting," reads a 1995 memorandum from the NACAC, which mimics a similar 2008 report from the College Board regarding the validity of the SAT as a predictor first-year college GPA.
"The best combination of predictors of first-year grade point average is high school grade point average and SAT scores," the report read.
The September report from the NACAC, as well as Eifler and Greene, recommend against using a standardized test score as the sole predictor of college success.
"The reality is there are already stories behind the numbers," Greene said.
According to Eifler, the process will still be a bit of a gamble for admissions officials, and their best bet for fairness will be to take a broader view at all applicants. A view that will still have standardized test scores as an element.
"Nothing really interesting or high stakes ever has one answer," Eifler said.
Admissions and testing at UP
The problems associated with standardized testing and the controversy surrounding admissions have not been lost on the ears of the University.
Due in part to those pressures, the University has adopted a more holistic admissions process, according to Dean of Admissions Jason McDonald.
Greene praised UP for its admissions philosophy.
"Here, our mission is not just about the head, but the head, the hand, and the heart," Greene said. "It's less about getting the knowledge, it's about how you're going to use it."
For a typical applicant, the school expects a standardized test score, a high school transcript, a writing sample and a letter of recommendation.
Test scores and GPA usually have a consistent correlation. When that is not the case, say for a student with a low SAT score and high grades, their case may be handled differently.
"We're trying to find ... a student that is going to contribute inside as well as outside the classroom," McDonald said.
The more resources admissions professionals have, McDonald said, the better they are able to predict a student's ability to succeed at their college, and because of that standardized tests will probably continue to be used as tools for admissions staff. The SAT and ACT work most of the time for the greatest number of people, McDonald said.
"Obviously test scores aren't perfect," McDonald said. "For now it's the best way that we have to try and compare students."
