FairTest
National Center for Fair & Open Testing
for further information, contact:
Bob Schaeffer (239) 395-6773
mobile (239) 699-0468
for immediate release Thursday, June 14, 2018
ACT/SAT NO LONGER REQUIRED AT UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO;
TEST-OPTIONAL ADMISSIONS MOVEMENT NOW TALLIES 1,000+ SCHOOLS
INCLUDING 310+ “TOP-TIER” COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES;
111 INSTITUTIONS DROP ADMISSIONS EXAMS IN PAST FIVE YEARS
Today’s announcement by the University of Chicago that the school will no longer require ACT or SAT test scores from applicants is a major milestone for the test-optional admissions movement. According to the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), which maintains the master database, more than 1,000 accredited, four-year colleges and universities now will make decisions about all or many applicants without regard to ACT or SAT test scores.
FairTest Public Education Director Bob Schaeffer assessed the implications. “The University of Chicago’s test-optional announcement should be a huge ‘ice-breaker’ for ultra-selective institutions. Other schools in this category are re-examining their admissions exam requirements but have hesitated to go first. Because Chicago has long been recognized as an admissions reform leader, it is now much more likely that peer national universities will follow suit.”
Schaeffer continued, “Chicago’s decision expands test-optional momentum from top-tier liberal arts colleges, where more than half no longer require ACT/SAT scores, to a broader range of nationally known schools. An accelerated trickle-down effect is likely — FairTest’s internal ‘watch list’ includes about three dozen schools that we know are considering dropping ACT/SAT scores. In the past five years alone, more than 110 colleges and universities reduced standardized exam requirements.”
All told, U.S. News ranks more than 300 test-optional and test-flexible schools in the first tiers of their respective categories. Among leading national universities, the University of Chicago joins American, Brandeis, George Washington, Wake Forest and Worcester Polytechnic as ACT/SAT-optional. Top-rated test-optional colleges include Bates, Bowdoin, Furman, Holy Cross, Pitzer, Sewanee, Smith, Wesleyan and Whitman.
There are many reasons for the test-optional surge, according to FairTest. Schaeffer explained, “By going test-optional, colleges and universities increase diversity of all types without any loss in academic quality. Multiple studies show that an applicant’s high school record predicts undergraduate success better than any standardized exam.”
“Eliminating testing requirements is a ‘win-win’ for both students and schools,” he concluded.
– – 3 0 – –
– FairTest’s frequently updated directory of test-optional, 4-year schools is available free online at https://www.fairtest.org/university/optional
– A list of test-optional schools ranked in the top tiers by U.S. News & World Report is posted at http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Optional-Schools-in-U.S.News-Top-Tiers.pdf
– A chronology of schools dropping ACT/SAT requirements is at http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Optional-Growth-Chronology.pdf
Diane Ravitch's blog 
What else would you expect from an ultra-left-wing institution like the University of Chicago.
That was tongue-in-cheek, right? You’re talking about the institution that brought the world the “Chicago School” of economics – i.e., Milton Friedman and his merry band of neoliberals.
Yes.
The economics is free market but not the university and other departments
Gee, no irony in this story..
Actually, most of the university is very right-wing/neoliberal. U of C also brought us Allan Bloom and his Closing of the American Mind (and if anyone knows about closed minds, it would be Bloom). U of C is heavily into charter schools and education rephorm (for other people’s children, of course – the professors’ kids all go to the Lab School). The psychology department was long known as the behavioral science department, with a strong focus on Skinner and his merry band. The law school and b-school are also known for being quite right-wing. The main exception would be the Divinity School.
Funny how times change perceptions. Behaviorism was anything but right wing when I was in college in the seventies. My major was in psych at a school heavily invested in Skinner although there were professors who took a more “conservative” approach. Actually behaviorism still has things to teach us. The danger comes from people who so fully invest themselves in the most doctrinaire approach and reject all others. It also comes from people who adopt what they think the philosophy is and apply it willy nilly in other circles.
No doubt parents who defend single test based admission at specialized high schools will not allow their children to apply to University of Chicago anymore.
Certainly Stuy was one of the larger feeder schools for U. of Chicago but I suspect that all of the parents there who believe so strongly in admissions based on a single test will no longer allow their children to apply.
It would be the height of hypocrisy for anyone who defends the SHSAT and complains that their child’s high school academics would be watered down and inferior by having to sit in classes with students who scored lower on the SHSAT to apply to U. of Chicago.
Why, without any SAT or ACT scores, how can they be certain those other college students are worthy enough to sit next to their own superior-scoring children? It would mean watered down academics for sure, according to the defenders of the SHSAT. Far too many inferior students would be admitted, according to the defenders of the SHSAT.
And it means the ruin of U. of Chicago, according to them, just like they believe it will be the ruin of Stuy.
The University of Chicago must be attempting to atone for their sin of being the garden of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism.
They probably see the writing on the wall… these tests are no longer valid due to the fact that so many students are given unlimited time and that fact is not flagged to prospective colleges. Completely unfair…
http://www.joannejacobs.com/2018/06/22-of-pomona-students-are-disabled/
Oh please, like the tests ever were valid, time or no.
What’s magic about a timed test anyway? What does it prove other than an individual’s ability to zip through tasks? When in life do you ever have exactly three hours (give or take) to do something with such monumental consequences?
20 seconds per math question. Drop 2 immediately and quickly make the correct choice using a math “trick”. This is what is taught when you spend a few thousand dollars for super duper SAT/ACT prep courses. No math involved! This came from a teen who took the prep course. The tests mean absolutely nothing and people are starting to notice.
I’ve heard similar things, Lisa – it’s all about tricks.
Fine.. make them untimed for everyone (one of the suggestions in the article I posted 🙂
Making them untimed is not enough.
They are not as valid as GPA in predicting college success.
When NY made state tests untimed, children spent hours and hours completing them.
They are still invalid.
These standardized tests USED to be quite valid. HS GPA and SAT together have a high multiple correlation (r=0.70) to first year college grades (Bridgeman, McCamley-Jenkins & Ervin, 2000).
One study indicated that HS GPA was more effective in predicting freshman year GPA when the GPA was between 2.0 – 3.0, but that the SAT was more predictive when the GPA was greater than 3.0.
Another large study shows SAT predicts upper GPA with correlations in the range of 0.35 – 0.5.
Click to access bfdbdfc0b77ab6676867075be3310d9eafda.pdf
Again, SAT should only be one component in the overall admissions process, but there is no evidence that these tests were “invalid” prior to the suicidal decision mentioned in my post above.
“These standardized tests USED to be quite valid. HS GPA and SAT together have a high multiple correlation (r=0.70) to first year college grades ”
It’s highly possible that this correlation happens because colleges adjust their first year to what the kids know on ACT and SAT. It would be foolish to think that these testing companies don’t influence (by whatever means) what universities are doing.
Abby,
I wasn’t going to chime in because others have responded. But your insistence that at one time these tests were valid is just plain wrong. They never were valid. Why not? Well let me direct you to Noel Wilson’s never refuted nor rebutted 1997 dissertation that outlines all of the onto-epistemological (foundational conceptual) falsehoods and errors and psychometric fudgings inherent in the standards and standardized testing regime that render any results completely invalid. The problems with validity or as Wilson puts it invalidity issues is such that these tests never have been valid. Please read and understand his “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at: http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700 To help you begin to understand those invalidities I offer this summary and some comments of mine:
A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other words all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self-evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
Duane,
You always make excellent points about standardized tests.
But I think you believe in classroom teacher designed tests, correct? If you have a class of 30 students, do you give them grades? What are they based on?
Also, it seems to me there could be a difference between a Calculus or Physics class (which might be more test-dependent) and an English or History or foreign language class (which may be writing assignments and not exams).
What you sometimes see in very large high schools (and large universities) is that teachers perceive grading very differently. Some may give extra credit, some may give mostly As and a few Bs and some mostly Bs and Cs and a few As. And while in a perfect world that difference is simply because one teacher had a class of mostly all outstanding students and the other had mostly mediocre ones, that is not always the case. While not perfect, having something like the NY State Regents Exams in a subject (students statewide take the same exam) does provide some reference point for whether the GPA differences reflect how well the student has mastered the material.
In England, students take the same comprehensive examinations before college — and I don’t believe they are simply multiple choice questions. While no test is even close to perfect, is that the kind of testing you believe might serve a useful purpose?
“If you have a class of 30 students, do you give them grades? What are they based on?”
I was a public school teacher for thirty years and less than 10 percent of the grade was based on teacher-made tests and quizzes. The other 90 percent was based on the work the students did. If they did it and it was done properly, they earned credit for their work similar to how workers earn a wage for every hour worked. Oh, and I offered challenging work as extra credit that was worth more than the 10 percent that tests and quizzes were worth. The standardized, high stakes tests designed to rank and punish both children and teachers were never part of a student’s grade — never.
That’s why most teachers spend more time correcting student work than teaching. In fact, the Washington Post did a survey and discovered that the average teacher worked 53 hours per week.
For instance, I taught five or six classes a day with an average of 34 students in each class. If I taught five classes, then I taught about 25 hours a week. If I taught six classes, thirty hours a week, but I worked 60 to 100 hours a week because the time I spent outside of class time with students was almost all spent correcting the work that was turned in.
But, many students and I mean too many, don’t turn any work in. They don’t read the assignments. They don’t work in class. They don’t do homework. They don’t bring material to class to do the work.
Those students were the ones that earned failing grades, D’s and C’s. Only the students that did most or all of the work earned B’s and A’s. In fact, if a student was earning an A in my class right before the semester final, they were excused from taking the final unless they wanted to do it for fun. Once they earned an A from the classwork and homework they did and turned in, that A was guaranteed regardless of a test score.
Now, someone might think that without test scores, how do you know what a student id learning.
Duh!
It’s really easy for a teacher to know who is learning from the work they do — especially when the teacher is reading and grading every assignment students turn in and recording those grades in their grade book.
I actually dislike tests — a LOT! — so I deliberately created a grading system that rewarded hard work that results in obvious learning. It isn’t taking tests that result in learning. It’s paying attention in class. It’s reading the material and doing the assignments related to that material and what they learned in class.
The result was that my students always outperformed all the other students in the same grade in the entire district on those high stakes tests in California prior to the NCLB Common Core high stakes rank and punish tests that were and are still crap — crap in and crap out.
Imagine a workplace where all we had to do was show up for a few minutes to take a test and if we scored a passing grade, we could go home with full pay for all the hours we didn’t do any work.
Oh, I taught English and journalism. For the seven years, I taught one section of journalism,(and four of English) not one student ever earned a failing grade because all of those journalism students turned their work in … mostly on time. The majority of grades were all A’s. Working with those students was the high point of my teaching years. There was one test in that class but that test had nothing to do with a grade. It had to do with being promoted from a cub reporter to a full reporter on the high school student newspaper. And the high school seniors that were the editors of that student newspaper picked the journalism textbook used by new, cub reporters and paid for that class set out of money they raised through selling ads for the school paper.
If a student reporter or editor didn’t get their work right, they did it again, and again, and again, if necessary and they almost all did it. The ones that didn’t like that, and there were a couple, that dropped the class because they obviously didn’t want to work that hard.
Now, a doubting critic might ask how do you know if that student newspaper was any good?
Well, the students submitted their paper to n international organization (run by journalism professors and real journalists) that rated student newspapers and the paper my students turned out ranked high every year the paper was submitted to them for an evaluation. The actual newspapers they produced were evaluated and ranked — not a stupid, incompetent multiple choice bubble test.
Most of the teachers I worked with and knew used simliar methods to grade their students.
First, NYCpsp, I had to “assign” grades. I didn’t have a choice in the matter. So I discussed at the beginning of the year the fallacies of grades-some of which are as you describe in your 4th paragraph, but also the underlying reasons (onto-epistemological) which I point out on the blog here. I guarantee that I wasn’t telling the students anything they didn’t already intuitively know. They might not have been able to verbalize it but they knew.
The grades were about 75% of just doing the work, having it completed on time because in learning a second language the object is to work and play with the language. Special projects and tests and quizzes made up the rest. I did allow extra credit through certain games we played and also through trying various foods/drinks that I would bring in for the students. I did not allow any other type of extra credit, no extra work for extra credit because in 21 years of teaching I never had a student who did all the work as assigned and studied the vocab fail to get an A. An interesting side note is that I never had a “bell curve” of grade distribution. It was always about 60% A/B, 10% C, 15% D and 5% not passing. Kinda of an all or nothing thing, mainly due to the students either doing the work or not. If a student did all the work they were in the A/B end. If not, well. . . .
As far as testing is concerned, I had chapter vocabulary quizzes and then chapter tests that included vocab, grammar, reading and listening. I found spoken assessments to take way too much class time. As a generality, for me, teacher made/local school made tests/assessments that are based on the curriculum covered are the best and most valid means of helping students learn. You see, I didn’t “assess” the students, other than a general knowing how they were doing by their responses in class. The tests, quizzes and assessments were meant to help the students assess where they were in their own learning of Spanish. I felt no need to “assess” them. It’s their learning, they have to figure out what they need to do to learn. Now that doesn’t mean that I didn’t discuss with students where they were in their learning. I did but it was done on a daily, informal basis.
And as far as your last question, not knowing what those tests are about, I can’t say but any test that is not locally made by the teacher(s) and that is over the curriculum covered is very problematic-invalid. Yes damn near the whole world believes in these massive end of course/year/studies type summative standardized tests. I don’t. . . because of the concerns delineated by Wilson.
Excellent commentary Lloyd! Exactamundo, eh!!
Thank you and yes. High stakes tests should ALL be shredded and dumped in a landfill along with …
It would be inappropriate for me to write on this site what comes after “with” — the vile profanity and violent words that would spew forth would be unacceptable here.
Thanks for the link on your subsequent post!
I find that the CfT’s document is pretty much an apologetic for grades, far too sympathetic towards “grading” students. It doesn’t delve at all into the fundamental issues concerning the “grading” of students. It gives short shrift to (although it does mention it) assessments being used to help the students learn, when helping students learn should be THE #1 rationale for any assessment.
I thought it was sort of an outline, a loose guide on how to grade. Since grades are not standardized, it makes sense that they wouldn’t or couldn’t get too specific.
Thank you both, Duane and Lloyd, for such comprehensive answers!
I truly appreciate you taking the time to elaborate! It is sometimes a mystery to parents how teachers assess and grade.
Here’s a link to Vanderbilt University to a post about Grading Student Work. It’s pretty accurate.
https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/grading-student-work/
The school district where I taught in California for thirty years required teachers to print out an explanation of their grading police and have the students take it home so parents could read it, sign it and return it so the teacher would know they had been informed.
At the very end of the piece, is a four-point list of what teachers should do to minimize student complaints about grading, and it describes what I did every year for thirty years.
I knew and know teachers that worked in other districts and all of those public school districts had similar requirements for their teachers. It was no secret. Unless the parents signed without reading or the student signed for their parents without letting them see it, there is no reason every parent should not know how their child was graded in each class.
NYCpsp,
My suggestion to you would be to set up a time to speak with your children’s teacher(s) and have them explain, just like Lloyd and I did how they use various assessing devices and assign grades (notice I didn’t say grade students). For me, the assessments should be for the benefit of the students, not the teacher, school, district, state ed departments who use that bogus “data” for things that have nothing to do with the student’s learning and the teaching and learning process that occurs in a classroom.
And I’m not saying that my way was the best way, as there is no “best” way as each class, subject matter and teacher are all different and it should be up to the professional educator, the teacher to determine what’s best for her/his class within certain guidelines obviously.
Lloyd,
I sign those every year but they don’t look anything like what you and Duane described.
More like a breakdown on how much each category is weighted. And tests are almost always weighted the most.
“And tests are almost always weighted the most.”
And that is where the standards and testing regime has destroyed more naturalistic/holistic assessing, by using tests/quizzes as THE means of assessment.
One of the reasons, along with many others-mainly health issues-was that the next year the district was mandating that something like 75% of the grade was to be from tests and quizzes. I couldn’t have done that and most certainly would have found a way around that bastardization of malpractice. Something like, give a quiz, have students correct it on the paper and turn it in to give credit for the corrected answers. In essence if students did that they’d be guaranteed an “A”. I know it would have involved a number of “meetings” with the adminimals and more likely than not some write-ups. I wouldn’t have given a damn because I would do what was right by the students.
The domination of the testing mania, and it most definitely is a mania”, that of the teacher being a diagnostician and the student being “diseased” for not being able to take a test, is what the standards and testing regime is about.
Again, the fundamental purpose of testing and assessment should be for the benefit of the students to better learn where they are in their own learning, not for the teachers and others to label and sort, separate and discriminate against some.
We should immediately stop using students as a means, such as is done in the standards and testing regime and treat them as the “ends” that they are, in other words, respect them for who they are. Not using others is one of the basic premises in any system of just ethics.
Teacher-made tests should be primarily used by the teacher to discover what students learned from a lesson and to determine if the methods the teacher used worked. If most of the students don’t do well on an assessment test/quiz, then the teacher is free to change the way they presented the material that was tested to see if that works better.
I actually did that a few times.
Those assessment tests should not be a significant part of a student’s grade. In fact, they shouldn’t be used to grade students at all, I think. That’s is why I made sure students I taught could earn an A even if they failed all the quizzes and tests in my classes. Classwork and homework counted as 90-percent of the grade. I even counted participation as extra credit to encourage students to participate in lessons. Too many students never raise their hands, never ask questions, never participate in group activities — for whatever reason, those children might not be ready.
I also used a class participation grade, which I had the students determine what they got, to allow me to “adjust” the final grades.
What’s the best way to motivate students to study without the competition for good grades?
I have no idea. Never thought of the teaching and learning process in that way.
With strong parental support, I don’t think we’d need letter grades. The children of parents that support teachers and come to meetings and ask questions almost always read the assignments, take part in the discussions and do the work and that is how they learn.
I read that in Finland, the public schools do not have letter grades, but Finland is known to have a high level of strong parental support for their schools and teachers.
Without that high level of strong parental support, letter grades can be used to reveal the students that read and work and those that don’t. As long as test scores are not part of final grades.
When students read all the assignments, do all the work and correct what they get wrong, ask questions and participate every student should earn an A.
But in the U.S. because of the high ratio of poverty, we don’t have that high level of strong parental support, and the decades-long war against public schools that has been demonizing teachers for years had turned too many parents against teachers.
Every teacher has their own grading policy. There is no standard — and the reason why is easily explained when thinking about the Common Core crap.
Back in my day (1975 – 2005), I remember that science, math and history teachers tended to rely more on tests than classwork or homework for their grading policy.
I don’t recall many English teachers relying too much on tests as a major part of the grade. But I retired in 2005 as the high stakes test madness and all those national mandates were building steam across the country thanks to oligarchs like Bill Gates, et al.
Ha, the final exam I gave my students each semester near the end was an open book test with a study guide (linked to all the stories we read and they did assignments for) handed out two weeks before the exam.
And when I graded that exam, the 2nd highest student grade on that exam was set as the high mark. The student with the highest grade ended up with extra credit. 90-percent of the 2nd highest student’s grade was an A-. 80% was a B-. 70% was a C-, and 55% was a D-.
For instance, if there were 200 questions on the exam and the 2nd highest grade in a class only got 150 correct, that 150 was an A+ and all the other grades were based off of 150 and not 200.
Correction: “One of the reasons I retired. . . “
It isn’t just the test optional change. I read this in the Chicago Tribune:
“The university is announcing a guarantee of free tuition for students from families with income under $125,000 a year.”
Given that a $125,000 annual HHI likely includes those families who often don’t qualify for enough need-based financial aid, this is a stunning (and positive) change. Room & Board will still be pricey, but guaranteed free tuition means a huge barrier to attendance is lifted.
Wonder who made the decision?
There is merit to the decision but the move does make a prospective student less clear about their admission chances. This could actually be a move to boost applications and boast greater selectivity. We will see. BTW-is a student’s high school record really more of a metric of success? I doubt that.
You doubt wrong. Yes, the high school record is a more reliable indicator, but it certainly isn’t a “metric”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/21/a-telling-study-about-act-sat-scores/?utm_term=.ee1983d48efd
Greater selectivity? You’re kidding, right? That’s worrying that Harvard is going to become more selective.
High school GPA is a better predictor of student performance in college than the SAT or the ACT.
What a great news! How much more time do we give for these tests to disappear? 5 years? 10?
Interesting you say that. I was just saying to my father that by the time my nine-year-old is ready for college I think those tests will probably be a thing of the past. I hope I’m right, but on the other hand, I fear what will replace them.
There are about 3,000 colleges. Most don’t require an admissions test. A growing number of those who do are changing to test optional. That may explain why SAT and SAT are entering the high school market, to replace state tests for promotion and graduation. It’s all about revenue.
Hey the College Board has to survive. What would happen to that beautiful ‘campus’ they have?
I’ve been saying on this website for quite some time that the SAT is a mostly worthless educational test that measures family income. The ACT is only marginally better. As one college enrollment expert noted about his company’s research on the SAT’s ability to predict college performance, “I may as well measure shoe size.”
By the way, as I noted here before, there is a company that wants to replace the SAT and ACT with its own set of rankings. It’s called Niche. And there are fools who’ve
bought into them. A school board chairperson in central Virginia recently touted the Niche rankings, calling the company the “”national leader in evaluation of schools and school divisions.”
Who or what is Niche, exactly?
Niche is a private, for-profit company. It began as College Prowler, a college guidebook company. Some questioned its rankings and reviews, and its less-then-ethical practices. Some higher education experts criticized the “College Prowler scandal, in which the purveyor of college guides was caught impersonating both students and colleges on Facebook in order to mine data and drive traffic to its website.” More information on that scandal can be found here:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/12/22/frenemies-facebook
The Chronicle of Higher Education noted that “College Prowler had formed a partnership with [another] company to ‘colonize’ Facebook groups for marketing purposes.” See:
http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/did-company-use-fake-facebook-groups-to-market-to-students/4450
In 2014, College Times – a college review company too – assessed 18 college review sites for the value they provide to students, saying that “Niche.com arbitrarily mixes data from government databases, school administrators, and students themselves, without communicating to visitors which data is which” and calling it “a massive ponzi scheme.”
And in 2015, the architectural engineering company SmithGroupJJR, one of the top such firms in the country, noted in its Perspectives blog that the Niche college rankings were of “questionable” value and Niche is working toward a future of trying to get its rankings used as “a viable future replacement for SAT/ACT scores…”
The founder of College Prowler/Niche says this about how Niche evolved out of College Prowler:
“Only a couple million people a year choose colleges. It’s not a market like Facebook…we needed more visitors and more dollars per visitor. How much traffic you have and how well you monetize this traffic is at the core of everything…So we rebranded from College Prowler to Niche…to a much larger market…We wanted to be a very big company, and now that’s what we’re on the path to do.”
Interestingly, all of the Niche school rankings are interlinked to Realtor.com. Niche’s founder said just last year that “Our brand is getting stronger every month…We’ve had 700 media mentions this year…We’re always at the top on search results….We have rich proprietary data that no one has…We’re becoming an authority in the industry…”
An authority on what, exactly? Hyping things up? Yep. Creating dubious rankings so that it can make money? For sure.
It would be unfair and inaccurate to call the Niche rankings high quality. Really, the Niche rankings are little different from the SAT or ACT or Advanced Placement in that they’re mostly bogus.
American public education deserves better.
Thanks for that information on Niche, democracy. More me, me, me people trying to make a quick buck off of public education with a bogus “product”. Ay ay ay. Only in Amurika-the total corporate fascist state.
And, no, those tests do not “measure” anything! “. . . that the SAT is a mostly worthless educational test that measures family income” is a false statement. We need to be careful in the usage of the edudeformers and privateers and those who implement malpractices that harm students. (And if you threw that baited hook meme in there on purpose-which I suspect-I swallowed it all the way down-just cut the line and throw me back into the water. I’ll eventually digest the hook)
I love the comments/conversation on this post. We do have to be skeptical & cautious (yes, what will the greedy te$t publi$hing/$tudent-teacher-$chool puni$hing indu$try (& their partner charter $chool privatizer$/pu$her$ {& that’$ EXACTLY what they are: “pu$her$,” a$ u$ed in “drug dealer$”} come up w/next?). Well, we’re READY for the %#@^&!*$, &, when we keep fighting as we’ve been doing…well, I’ll continue to say, “Yes, WE can…Yes, WE did…& Yes, yes WE WILL!”
These tests have meant nothing but money for Pear$on & the College Board & nothing but a way to “show” that public schools fail, so to close them & open their very profitable charters.
Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end. (Meaning, the end of the “reform” movement.)
https://www.chronicle.com/article/How-the-ACTSAT-Help/243721 – even if this Rich Saunders is fake, I still agree with the arguments in the article. Hmm, it went behind the paywall now.
Here is another one, with a similar message: “Professor Hyman calculates that at a cost of less than $50 per student, a universal testing program is one of the least expensive ways to increase college attendance. Further, if the SAT or ACT replaces the standardized test that states require in public schools, it need not take up any additional instructional time, a key concern of testing opponents.” – https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/upshot/how-universal-college-admission-tests-help-low-income-students.html
BA, That is total garbage. Neither the SAT nor the ACT was designed as state tests or graduation tests. Malpractice.