Harvard, Here I Come!

Harvard Here I Come!

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Aron Bishop, Staff Writer

Consider the following following top colleges and universities:

George Washington University, Bryn Mawr, New York University, University of Chicago, Bowdoin College. Smith College, Wake Forest University, Goucher College, American University, Temple University.

What do they all have in common? Is it the stellar curriculum, the tuition, the job opportunities? No. What they all have in common is that they all are placing less emphasis on SAT scores. Yes, at the above listed colleges and universities, the SAT or ACT is optional.  However, this puts pressure on other areas of academic and personal assessment. Students feel that all they must do is keep their grades up, run on the varsity cross country team, and volunteer at the local food bank and then they’ll get into Harvard.  Well, maybe not Harvard, but at the very least Princeton.

Why the switch? Educational researchers are citing the best predictor for success at the collegiate level is students’ performance on college level courses in high school and not their performance (or lack thereof) on a national standardized test. Let’s face it, some students are good at taking standardized tests, while others are not. Then there is the amount of time and preparation that goes into preparing for the SAT or ACT.  The SAT is particularly challenging because there is still a debate as to whether the test accurately measures the material one studies while in high school. For years, or more precisely, for decades, educators and student advocators have raised the ‘flag of skepticism’ when it comes to using the SAT as one of the means for evaluating or measuring the potential for student success at the collegiate level.  Some researchers cite gender, race or ethnicity, and socioeconomic level as biases inherent in the SAT and ACT. These advocates note that the key factors for a high school student college achievement should be: high school grades in college preparatory classes, interviews, and recommendations as a better measurement for success.

Most proponents of standardized tests note that meticulous efforts are made to ensure each question on the exam has been vetted for fairness across the board without bias towards class, race or gender. But ACT and SAT still contain questions that are European oriented with very little question or reading from other cultures. Generally, minorities perform less stellar then their European counterparts. To increase diversity, and college applications from minorities, colleges and universities need to ditch standardized tests for more flexible and open process, not based solely on one test.

 

Sources:

https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/04/26/604875394/study-colleges-that-ditch-the-sat-and-act-can-enhance-diversity

https://www.chronicle.com/article/An-Ultra-Selective-University/243678

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-black-white-test-score-gap-why-it-persists-and-what-can-be-done/

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/02/19/study-finds-little-difference-academic-success-students-who-do-and-dont-submit-sat