The dreaded three-hour, Saturday morning SAT faces an increasingly uncertain future as more colleges have begun making the exam an optional component of the application process.
Now a report released this month suggests the exam should not carry much weight at all. The report, which was a culmination of a yearlong study by the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, details the use and misuse of standardized testing in the college application process.
Standardized testing is already optional at more than 400 colleges, and for approximately 755 other four-year colleges in the United States, the SAT I or ACT is not heavily weighed for bachelor’s degree applicants, according to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing website.
In 1984, Bates became one of the first colleges in the United States to decrease emphasis on standardized exams in the application process.
Bates Vice President William Hiss said optional standardized testing allows students from disadvantaged applicant pools such as women, multi-cultural students, bilingual students, students with learning disabilities and athletes to more easily apply to Bates.
College admissions test results often reveal considerable score differences among ethnic, gender and socioeconomic groups, according to the report.
Steven Syverson, Lawrence University’s vice president for enrollment, said standardized testing provides an unfair advantage for the affluent who can afford expensive preparation courses.
“The highest correlation with test scores is affluence,” he said. “So many affluent people are paying to take test prep courses in order to improve their skills. This is creating a bigger gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots.'”
Syverson said standardized testing does not give colleges an accurate predication of future success.
“Standardized testing doesn’t tell us about likelihood of a student graduating, ultimate GPA or how an applicant might be successful at college in other ways outside the classroom,” he said.
Wheaton College junior Chelsea Petrozzo said she decided not to submit her SAT scores when she applied.
My transcript was a better representation of who I was as a student,” she said.
BU spokesman Colin Riley said that BU has more than 38,000 applicants each year, and that the standardized tests are a helpful way to sort through those applications.
Though Riley confirmed that Boston University uses tests like the SAT and the ACT to admit students, he minimized their importance in BU’s overall admission process. He said standardized tests are the last thing the school looks at during admissions.
Still, Riley did not see BU letting go of standardized tests in the future.
“At this point and in the near future, I don’t know that it’s being discussed. We’re looking at students that will be applying in the next few months.”