Last year, Hampshire College in Massachusetts decided that it would no longer require either the SAT or the ACT for admission. This made Hampshire different from the 800+ colleges that are “test-optional,” where students may or may not submit their scores on college admission examinations. Hampshire College was founded in 1970 as an alternative private liberal arts college that was free to experiment with its curriculum; it relies on portfolios of work, rather than distribution requirements; it relies on narrative evaluations rather than grades and GPA. It is one of the top colleges in the nation in terms of the proportion of its graduates who continue to graduate school.
President Jonathan Lash wrote:
You won’t find our college in the U.S. News & Word Report “Best Colleges” rankings released this month. Last year Hampshire College decided not to accept SAT/ACT test scores from high school applicants seeking admission. That got us kicked off the rankings, disqualified us, per U.S. News rankings criteria. That’s OK with us.
We completely dropped standardized tests from our application as part of our new mission-driven admissions strategy, distinct from the “test-optional” policy that hundreds of colleges now follow. If we reduce education to the outcomes of a test, the only incentive for schools and students to innovate is in the form of improving test-taking and scores. Teaching to a test becomes stifling for teachers and students, far from the inspiring, adaptive education which most benefits students. Our greatly accelerating world needs graduates who are trained to address tough situations with innovation, ingenuity, entrepreneurship, and a capacity for mobilizing collaboration and cooperation.
We weighed other factors in our decision:
· Standardized test scores do not predict a student’s success at our college
· SATs/ACTs are strongly biased against low-income students and students of color, at a time when diversity is critical to our mission
· We surveyed our students and learned not one of them had considered rankings when choosing to apply to colleges; instead they most cared about a college’s mission
· Some good students are bad test takers, particularly under stress, such as when a test may grant or deny college entry; Multiple-choice tests don’t reveal much about a student
· We’ve developed much better, fairer ways to assess students who will thrive at our college.
In our admissions, we review an applicant’s whole academic and lived experience. We consider an applicant’s ability to present themselves in essays and interviews, review their recommendations from mentors, and assess factors such as their community engagement and entrepreneurism. And yes, we look closely at high school academic records, though in an unconventional manner. We look for an overarching narrative that shows motivation, discipline, and the capacity for self-reflection. We look at grade point average (GPA) as a measure of performance over a range of courses and time, distinct from a one-test-on-one-day SAT/ACT score. A student’s consistent “A” grades may be coupled with evidence of curiosity and learning across disciplines, as well as leadership in civic or social causes. Another student may have overcome obstacles through determination, demonstrating promise of success in a demanding program. Strong high school graduates demonstrate purpose, a passion for authenticity, and commitment to positive change.
We’re seeing remarkable admissions results since disregarding standardized test scores:
· Our yield, the percentage of students who accepted our invitation to enroll, rose in a single year from 18% to 26%, an amazing turnaround
· The quantity of applications went down but the quality went up, likely because we made it harder to apply, asking for more essays; Our applicants collectively were more motivated, mature, disciplined and consistent in their high school years than past applicants
· Class diversity increased to 31% students of color, the most diverse in our history, up from 21% two years ago
· The percentage of students who are the first-generation from their family to attend college rose from 10% to 18% in this year’s class.
Our “No SAT/ACT policy” has also changed us in ways deeper than data and demographics: Not once did we sit in an Admissions committee meeting and “wish we had a test score.” Without the scores, every other detail of the student’s application became more vivid. Their academic record over four years, letters of recommendation, essays, in-person interviews, and the optional creative supplements gave us a more complete portrait than we had seen before. Applicants gave more attention to their applications including the optional components, putting us in a much better position to predict their likelihood of success here.
This move away from test scores and disqualification from the US News rankings has allowed us to innovate in ways we could not before. In other words, we are free to innovate rather than compromise our mission to satisfy rankings criteria:
-We no longer chase volumes of applications to superficially inflate our “selectivity” and game the US News rankings. We no longer have to worry that any applicant will “lower our average SAT/ACT scores” and thus lower our US News ranking. Instead we choose quality over quantity and focus attention and resources on each applicant and their full portfolio.
-At college fairs and information sessions, we don’t spend time answering high school families’ questions about our ranking and test score “cut-offs.” Instead we have conversations about the things that matter: What does our unique academic program look like and what qualities does a student need to be successful at it?
-An unexpected benefit: this shift has saved us significant time and operational expense. Having a smaller but more targeted, engaged, passionate, and robust applicant pool, we are able to streamline our resources.
How can US News rankings reliably measure college quality when their data-points focus primarily on the high school performance of the incoming class in such terms as GPA, SAT/ACT, class rank, and selectivity? These measures have nothing to do with the college’s results, except perhaps in the college’s aptitude for marketing and recruiting. Tests and rankings incentivize schools to conform to test performance and rankings criteria, at the expense of mission and innovation.
Our shift to a mission-driven approach to admissions is right for Hampshire College and the right thing to do. We fail students if we reduce them to a standardized test number tied more to their financial status than achievement. We fail students by perpetuating the myth that high standardized test scores signal “better” students. We are in the top one percent of colleges nationwide in the percentage of our undergraduate alumni who go on earn advanced degrees – this on the strength of an education where we assess their capabilities narratively, and where we never, not once, subject them to a numerical or letter grade on a test or course.
At Hampshire College, we face the same financial challenges as many colleges. But these challenges provide an opportunity to think about who we are and what matters to us. We can not lose sight of our mission while seeking revenues or chasing rankings. We are committed to remaining disqualified from the US News rankings. We’re done with standardized testing, the SAT, and ACT.
– Jonathan Lash, President of Hampshire College, is also a Director of World Resources Institute, a DC-based environmental think tank, where he previously served as president. Jonathan is an widely recognized environmental leader who chaired President Bill Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development and was the State of Vermont’s Environmental Secretary and Commissioner. He holds a law degree and master’s degree in education from Catholic University of America and a bachelor’s from Harvard College.
As a Hampshire alumnus, I’m particularly proud of this news from my alma mater. Thank you Jonathan Lash, the Hampshire Board of Trustees, and the Hampshire Admissions Office.
This sounds like a school I’d like to attend (and my SAT scores were decent). It just seems like a place that is focused on education and not on superficial factors.
Too bad I’m now retired and my college years are far behind me.
Bravo!
I’m on the same page as you… I’ve had many students who are not great test takers, but they have so much to offer regarding critical thinking skills, creativity, & service to the community… I’ll definitely keep this place in mind if they ask about colleges… just wish I could go here too!
I often tell my kids that I want them to look at colleges and universities that are SAT optional. There is a political message I want sent – If we are going to spend all of that money we may as well support a college that shares our values. I want my kids to be more than a number. I want the school to meet them, to interview them, to see the spark for life and learning in their eyes. If I am going to go into debt, it had better be worth it. That said, as a Temple alumna, I have been researching Temple University’s confusing messages. Last summer they announced that they are going SAT optional. Yesterday Diane reported that Teach for America and KIPP received the largest chunk of Walton Foundation money… and Temple has now announced their partnership with KIPP charter schools. They’ve taken Gates money, too. Temple seems to be selling their soul.
Clearly parents of conscience need to dig deeper before we spend our hard earned dollars for college. It is not enough to find a school that is test optional. Perhaps Fair Test can create a list of schools of conscience – schools that do not sleep with the enemy, schools that get the big picture and boldly lead in ethics, schools that consider being omitted from U.S. News & Word Report a selling point.
Hampshire College, bravo. We will be visiting soon. No U.S. News & Word Report?
Best PR ever.
This part is really interesting, because it goes against the argument that “objective” test scores are an equity measure- the idea I heard when I was in high school was if students are all ranked on the same test then it’s a “level playing field” and any (unfair) bias towards some students over others won’t be a factor:
Class diversity increased to 31% students of color, the most diverse in our history, up from 21% two years ago
· The percentage of students who are the first-generation from their family to attend college rose from 10% to 18% in this year’s class.
Whenever I see a “top-rated college” calling attention to its diversity figures, the skeptic in me asks whether Asians are “students of color.”
You make a good point, Flerp.
At UCLA, which along with UC Berkeley, are the two rated top tier public universities in the US, the entering Freshman class this year includes 25,897 Americans and 3,736 International students. These are overall ethnically represented as 33.5% Asian/Pacific Islander, 27% White, 19%Hispanic, and 4% African American (even though the African American population is about 16%).
In order to create more revenue, the U.of C. Regents decided to allow a huge proportion of entering students, about 40%, to be from out of state, so as to collect far higher tuition from them. This is seen by many California taxpayers as very unfair to in-state students who must have at least a straight A average generally, to be accepted.
Do you see a pattern emerging? When I was a student long ago, the Asian students were already the major competition…just ahead of, or on a par with, the Jewish students. These two groups, even then, kept the grade points very high, with fierce academic competition. So to judge all students of color on the same scale is not realistic.
As an aside, some of my friends children who are currently math majors are having great difficulty understanding the lectures of some of their Asian professors whose English language is heavily accented, and many of these have so many Asian students in their classes that some slip into their language of origin in the classroom.
When my husband was working on his PhD in Math at UB, he was the only white person in the course. Once I had to go to the class for him to take notes (a difficult task since not only were the concepts over my head, but the professor was Chinese). One of the other students approached me and said my husband could not compete with them since he was not of Asian descent.
My husband is gifted in both math and science. I thought the arrogance of this student was way out of line, but it gives an indication of how they view American students.
As much as I would like to agree with you, all you have to do is work with Asian students who feel stereotyped by that very image of Asians. In this country they are pretty much expected to be stellar students. Then again racism and/or stereotyping of “others” is not restricted to white people.
If you all are shocked at the high enrollment UCLA figures, here is a quote from Wikipedia.
“With an approximate enrollment of 30,000 undergraduate and 12,000 graduate students, UCLA has the highest enrollment of any university in California and is the most applied to university in the United States with over 112,000 applications for fall 2015.”
The university is the size of a small city, and is in the lovely area of Westwood, California, only a few miles from the Pacific Ocean. My post should have read “enrollment including the freshman class”….
“Class diversity increased to 31% students of color, the most diverse in our history, up from 21% two years ago”
Sirens going off in the Heritage Foundation bat cave. Call the lawyers!
Despite attending a highly respected high school, I remember how avant-garde Hampshire sounded when they opened in 1970. Part of me wanted to transfer there from Mount Holyoke, up the road, but I was in no way prepared for the self-directed learning that they advocated. Looking at my own fairly passive trek through much of my education, I feel a great need to stress the development of self-directed learners well before graduating from K-12. We seem to be spending the first few years driving out curiosity, imagination, and experimentation only to later claim the need for these very traits/21st century skills. Wouldn’t it be nice if just once we could stop the pendulum swing dead center and resist the temptation of extremes?
I always lamented that the curiosity and candor of kindergarteners was lost by the time they reached fourth grade where the strived to give the expected answer for the teacher’s approval.
This is particularly true in this climate of high stakes tests, with the emphasis or scores rather than authentic learning.
When I was in seventh grade, my NJ district piloted team teaching with my grade. At one point during science block, we got to write and present a report on an earth science topic that we chose. I did a report on types of rock and how they were formed. During my presentation, the teacher asked me if I knew how lava tubes were formed. I still remember her smile when I came up with an explanation that made sense based solely on my own speculation about what I had learned.
I also remember my language arts teacher accusing me of plagiarism when I paraphrased a dialogue between characters in the book, Cheaper by the Dozen. I didn’t know what it was and asked another teacher. I don’t know how you plagiarize a book report, but I suspect that she didn’t know what she was talking about. I was so proud of my creation! Fortunately, the other teacher handled the situation well although I suspect I was a little more careful with my attempts at “creativity.”
It’s funny the things we remember. There is a lot about school I have forgotten, but I can still tell you about the differences between igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks. Cheaper by the Dozen, not so much. 🙂
I would suggest including the link source for the quote of this post:
Results of Removing Standardized Test Scores From College Admissions
“…and where we never, not once, subject them to a numerical or letter grade on a test or course.”
It seems odd that a no-grades college ever would have required or even accepted SAT/ACT test scores. But anyway, welcome aboard – this is really good news.
They never actually required them. The first sentence of the article is a little off. It should say Hampshire decided not to “accept” the tests, not that it decided “not to require” them. I don’t think it ever required them; they were only optional.
Jonathan Lash alone is reason enough to attend Hampshire College , in my opinion.
He shows a level of respect for the whole person that is becoming increasingly rare among college presidents (especially at the ‘top ranked” schools), many of whom seem to be little more than used car salesmen bent on gaming the system and gaming their “customers” (parents and students).
Used car salesmen in more ways than one. Remember this scandal?
“Many of the institutions that had been found in this year’s student loan investigation to have revenue sharing agreements with lenders, for instance, had directed much of their loan volume to those lenders, with the implication that they were doing so to increase their cut of the loan funds. ”
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/04/loans
We went over our kids’ stuff carefully. We told them “trust no one and sign nothing until it’s reviewed by someone who actually cares what happens to you” 🙂
It’s too bad but they have to approach this that way, to protect themselves, but I think they do.
Hope many other colleges will follow.
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A comprehensive database listing 850 accredited, bachelor-degree granting institutions that do not require all or many applicants to submit ACT/SAT scores before admissions decisions are made is available free online at:http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional — FairTest most definitely includes Hampshire in its lists!
There’s a difference between saying the tests are optional and saying the tests aren’t accepted. Most of the schools on that list will at least accept them. Hampshire will not, so technically the list it a little outdated.
As a Hampshire College graduate, I can testify that my college experience was exceptional. I entered Hampshire with exceedingly high expectations and the college exceeded them!
At Hampshire, the emphasis is on LEARNING—in every sense of that complex word. That amazing college gave me the foundation for everything in my life since then, in pursuits as diverse as journalism, technology marketing, election campaigning, issue/message crafting and dissemination, event management and promotion, legislative lobbying, political blogging, K-12 public schools activism, non-profit association management and being an entrepreneur for my own firm, MarketStrike, which I co-founded back in the 1990’s with my now retired ex-partner. (Hampshire has produced many notable entrepreneurs, including the founder of Stonyfield Yogurt. It’s a great place to gain the broad array of skills you need to create and sustain a startup.)
Also, as a Hampshire student, you’re free to enroll in courses offered at any of the other four colleges within a seven mile radius: Amherst, Mount Holyoke, Smith and the University of Massachusetts. (A free bus takes you from one campus to the next. And in addition to the truly exceptional experience this “Five College” cooperation provides for students to experience the culture and academic offerings of other notable undergraduate institutions, the traditional letter grades the other 4 colleges provided also helped to reassure my parents that I really WAS getting an excellent post-secondary education. 😉
I’m hoping my young child and some of his peers will seriously consider Hampshire College when their time comes, and that they’ll have the same great opportunity to one day count themselves among the growing number of Hampshire alumni who are making a difference, in all professions and pursuits, everywhere on the planet.
(The education I received at Hampshire is a key factor motivating my interest and involvement as a parent and K-12 education activist, fighting against the privatization of our nation’s public schools.)
Thank you, Diane, for your posting about my alma mater—a true, constantly evolving, “learning laboratory” that combines pedagogical innovation and bold experimentation with the very best traditions of the many fine liberal arts colleges throughout the United States, going back to the 1700’s.
I hope more people will begin to learn about Hampshire, because of this and similar postings and news stories, and the very excellent education it offers for college students.
Puget Sound is where Evergreen State College is, which is also a remarkable school which has an interdisciplinary degree program and uses portfolios to evaluate students (or at least used to when I knew people there long ago)
I wish I had know about colleges like Evergreen and Hampshire when I was looking at schools. Too often they are overlooked or simply dismissed by guidance counselors precisely because they are ‘different” and hence considered inferior by those who don’t know any different.
A different perspective:
http://hechingerreport.org/the-real-reason-that-colleges-go-test-optional/
An important distinction: Hampshire is not “test optional,” which means “send them in if you want.” It’s “test blind,” which means “don’t bother to send the scores; we won’t look at them.” So this article may not apply.
For most of my career, my students were kids for whom English was a second language, who qualified for a free lunch, and who were not white. So – their SAT scores were low, and they needed lots of money to go to college. Our faculty worked with the kids to find and apply to colleges where they would be more than a number – Hampshire among them.
One of my students had come out to her parents in her senior year as gay. They told her that after graduation she would no longer be welcome in their home. Hampshire, having accepted her, provided a summer job and summer housing before her first semester began. Certainly, much, much more than a number.