Many, many institutions of higher learning have gone test optional this year. Some have abandoned the tests because they view tests as unnecessary and some because of the difficulties of taking a test during the COVID-19 pandemic. An overwhelming majority of colleges will not require the SAT or the ACT for admission in the coming academic year.
Today, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) issued a new report that reflects those changes. The report does not state definitively that colleges shouldn't require a test, but it says that the assumptions of colleges when they adopted testing requirements may no longer be true.
“Time has changed much about the founding purposes and assumptions behind these [standardized] exams,” says the report. “Indeed, the very notions of finding ‘diamonds in the rough’ and even the ‘common yardstick’ are culturally suspect. Are not all students capable of success if given equal opportunity?”
“After we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions, we cannot simply ‘go back to normal,’” the report says. “The tenuous grasp we hold on many of our habits and policies has been further loosened and we must adapt if we are to continue to fulfill our duty to the public good.”
The report says that colleges that may have needed tests at one point no longer do. "Postsecondary institutions have effectively entrusted the College Board and ACT with the authority of serving as a third-party certifier of students’ qualification for admission. As the population interested in admission to college has rapidly expanded and diversified, however, testing agencies have not been able to ensure that the access to and availability of test administrations, the quality of the testing experience, and the integrity and validity of test scores are preserved consistently," the report says.
"Moreover, 'test prep' -- at first scorned by the testing agencies and now embraced -- has burgeoned into a billion-dollar industry, creating added equity challenges and calling into question the reliability of test scores as true measures of student abilities."
While not urging colleges to drop testing requirements for good, the report says colleges should make their decisions about testing in the following ways:
Consider the public good. "Consider what admission policy decisions mean for higher education generally, and whether institutional policies and practices enable more students access to higher education," the report says.
Be student-centered. "Offer simplicity and clarity in a time of complexity and heightened anxiety about the college admission process. Though the COVID-19 pandemic created additional barriers to accessing standardized tests, certain populations -- including international applicants, who are critical to postsecondary institutions -- have faced barriers for decades that will remain, or even be exacerbated, if or when testing returns to pre-COVID-19 operations."
Consider unintended consequences. "Standardized tests have served a role in the evaluation process to assess cognitive characteristics of students independently of any particular secondary school curriculum. External assessments can be thought of as a counterweight to information from secondary schools that have an interest in the outcome of the selection process. When colleges and universities no longer utilize SAT or ACT scores, and other measures of academic achievement become more important in determining who is admitted, does this place new pressures on secondary schools?"
As a former high school counselor, I would have to respond YES to this important question. The unintended consequence of removing a valid and reliable metric like the ACT or SAT from the admissions process will undoubtedly place new burdens on secondary schools to validate curriculum, and appropriately represent students' abilities to name a few.
When we at last enter the post COVID-19 era, the burden of proof should rest with the testing industry and admissions offices that require scores to show that the exams are fair, accurate, and helpful. Based on the information presented in the NACAC report, current undergraduate admission tests are not meeting these basic standards.
Hopefully, colleges will evaluate how they utilize test scores through a new lens. Test scores should be used in context, as one part of a holistic admissions process, to make more equitable and inclusive admission decisions.
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