Last month, the University of California regents unanimously voted to suspend SAT and ACT use in admissions through 2024. Considering the influence the UC system has across the nation’s higher-education institutions, this decision could herald changes across the board.
Although a long time coming, the mandate was more than likely expedited by the current coronavirus pandemic. And while much learning has moved online since COVID-19 hit the United States, standardized testing — which relies on test proctors to ensure no cheating is involved — was unable to make the digital leap quickly enough to allow students to take the tests on their regularly scheduled dates, thus hastening its demise.
And for that, I am relieved. Because standardized testing has never been a fair way to assess a student’s potential.
The Bias of Standardized Tests
The benefit of using scores from standardized tests, such as the SAT and ACT, for college admissions has long been a subject of debate, mainly due to the inherent bias in this form of testing. Study after study has shown that students from more affluent backgrounds routinely score higher on such tests due to the fact they can afford tutoring and test-prep classes, which can run in the hundreds or even thousands of dollars.
That alone should tell you that these tests need to be ditched. But there are also numerous other reasons standardized tests should be done away with, including:
- The feedback from such tests does not help classroom teachers.
- The focus on such tests has relegated studies such as the visual arts and music to the back burner.
- Relying on scores from standardized tests gives more power to the test manufacturers, most of who are traditional businesses whose sole intent is profit, not education.
What Goes Into a College Application
There are many components that go into a college application these days. Most commonly, these include:
- a personal statement
- letters of recommendation from faculty, school staff, employers, and other individuals who are deeply familiar with a student’s work, ethics, and personality
- a high school transcript
- scores from standardized tests
- a portfolio
This last piece does not only mean artistic works. Instead, a portfolio can showcase activities and interests that do not fit neatly into one of the other components, or it can reinforce the narrative you’ve begun there. If you’re an avid chess player, for example, your portfolio might include camps you’ve attended, tournaments you’ve competed in, and any mentoring you’ve given. If your personal statement mentioned that you are active in volunteering, your portfolio can showcase the many organizations and projects you’ve taken part in.
In other words, your portfolio is the chance to tell a college what you can contribute to society and how you hope that college will help you achieve that goal.
How Colleges Can Benefit from This Game Changer
Many colleges have already announced that fall 2020 has been changed in some way, whether it’s shortened semesters (to avoid a late-fall recurrence of the virus) or having classes held entirely online. Because of these sweeping changes in the college experience, coupled with the rising price of tuition, many would-be freshmen are opting to either take a gap year or forego college altogether.
That leaves universities with a lot of placement slots to fill — which is another reason that UC may have opted to ditch the requirement for standardized tests: By doing so, they open up the potential of enrollment to a whole group of students who might not otherwise have been considered for admission due to their SAT or ACT scores. That’s a boon to both colleges and students.
It also places more of an onus on university instructors to prove their worth, as they will no longer have the luxury of teaching to a body of students who learn in one homogenous way. If colleges use an alternative kind of assessment, such as a portfolio, for admission, they’re going to get a completely different crop of students than if they’d screened them by their standardized test scores. That means instructors will have to be more creative in their teaching approach and make more of an effort to get to know their students. If the instructors fail at these tasks, colleges will suffer through lack of retention.
This isn’t to say that schools won’t be getting good students, just that they might get a different variety of abilities and learning methods than they are accustomed to. And I guarantee that that variety will come in different colors as well.
And to that, I say, it’s about time.