An Imperfect Necessity

When it comes to the standardized college admissions tests like the SAT and ACT, there’s a lot to gripe about. Beyond bringing additional stress to the admissions process, it is unclear that standardized tests are really fair or measure actual aptitude. Indeed, studies have shown that standardized test scores are less effective than things like high school grades at predicting academic performance in college, are correlated with the socioeconomic status of test takers, and are subject to the influence of coaching and private tutoring, luxuries only available to those who can afford them.

Despite their many flaws, however, standardized tests are a necessary convenience for many schools, serving as a coarse method of comparison between the tens of thousands of applicants a school may consider every year. Steps should be taken to ameliorate the importance of these tests, but getting rid of them is unfortunately not a viable option.

The good news is that debate about the importance of standardized testing in college admissions finally seems to be spreading to those with the power to reform the system. Indeed, at the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) Conference held last week, discussion about the importance of standardized testing took the limelight. And NACAC is taking action—it formed a Commission on the Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admission, chaired by Harvard Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons ’67, which will issue a report next year.

The Commission’s report is expected to address the effect of test preparation on student performance, test biases, and the possible advantages of using subject tests over the SAT. In addition, the Commission will also propose recommendations to college admissions officers and high school counselors on how they should view standardized tests, in light of the tests’ potential weaknesses. These efforts are commendable, because identifying where the SAT falls short will not only increase admissions officers’ awareness of the test’s limitations, but also encourage the development of more reliable and more equitable methods of evaluation.

In the current admissions system, however, standardized tests will continue to serve a useful role for many colleges. Scores, although limited in their predictive power, still provide a nationally standardized benchmark against which admissions officers may quickly garner a rough idea of an applicant’s comparative academic ability. As long as admissions committees are aware of the test’s limitations and interpret scores with the applicant’s socioeconomic background in mind, considering test scores may greatly expedite what would otherwise be an unmanageably complex admissions process.

To be sure, in an ideal world, colleges would not have to rely on scores at all when evaluating applicants. This is a luxury Harvard has—the College has a large admissions committee that is able to read every piece of paper that it receives. At Harvard, standardized tests are merely one additional indicator, not the difference between an acceptance letter and a rejection. This type of system is the ideal toward which all universities should strive. Unfortunately, many schools do not have the resources to implement such a costly holistic evaluation process, especially large state schools. For instance, the University of California at Los Angeles received upwards of 50,000 applications last year. Standardized tests might be a terrible system, but they are better than the alternatives.

What reformers and Fitzsimmons’ Commission should focus on, then, is not getting rid of standardized tests but finding ways to level the playing field within the context of the existing system. There are many ways to do so. The College Board, which administers the SAT, could reduce the cost of their expensive and lucrative test prep materials so that preparation becomes less of a luxury good. Moreover, colleges could share with each other information on the quality of instruction of different high schools, making it easier for deluged admissions offices to judge a student’s coursework relative to standards of his or her school. In the long run, this would allow colleges to de-emphasize standardized testing and focus on other measures of aptitude. Such solutions would reduce the inequities imposed by standardized tests without destroying a useful tool because it is flawed.