FairTest has been fighting the overuse and misuse of standardized testing for decades. One of their goals has been to encourage colleges and universities not to require the SAT or ACT. The pandemic accelerated their goal.
for further information, contact:
Harry Feder (917) 273-8939
Bob Schaeffer (239) 699-0468
for immediate release Wednesday, July 26, 2023
ACT/SAT-OPTIONAL, TEST-FREE ADMISSIONS MOVEMENT EXPANDS AGAIN:
RECORD 1,900+ SCHOOLS DO NOT REQUIRE SCORES FOR FALL 2024 ENTRANCE
AS NEW CYCLE OF COMMON APPLICATION OPENS NEXT WEEK;
FAIRTEST LIST NOW INCLUDES ALL-TIME HIGH 85% OF COLLEGES, UNIVERSITIES
As a new college admissions cycle gets underway with the launch of the 2024 Common Application on Tuesday, August 1, a new tally shows that a record 85% of U.S. bachelor’s degree-granting colleges and universities will not require ACT or SAT scores from recent high school graduates seeking to enroll in fall 2024.
According to the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), an all-time high of more than 1,900 U.S. colleges and universities have announced that they will practice ACT/SAT-optional or test-free admissions for this fall’s high school seniors. Several dozen additional schools have not yet made public their testing requirements for Fall 2024 admissions, but most are expected to remain test optional.
FairTest Executive Director Harry Feder explained, “More and more schools are ACT/SAT-optional or test-free every year because the policies have proven to be so effective. Admissions offices that stop requiring standardized exam scores usually receive more applicants, better academically qualified applicants, and more diverse pools of applicants. Most admissions leaders have seen no persuasive reason to restore testing requirements. The realization that standardized test scores provide virtually no useful additional information on a college application has sunk in. That means nearly every senior in the high school class of 2024 can choose to apply without submitting scores.”
Bob Schaeffer, FairTest’s Public Education Director, added, “After recent Supreme Court decisions on admissions, eliminating testing requirements is a fair, legally permissible way to encourage applications from first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented student groups, for whom standardized exams are often a poor predictor of college success.” FairTest filed an Amicus brief in the Supreme Court cases calling for an end to the use of “race conscious” test scores in admissions and financial aid decisions.
FairTest has led the U.S. test-optional admissions movement since the late 1980s. At that time, fewer than three dozen colleges and universities did not mandate ACT or SAT score submission from applicants. Immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic,1,070 schools were test-optional or test-blind.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The only “tests” that serve any purpose are teacher made tests for teachers to evaluate the results of a lesson they taught and from assigned student reading, classwork, and homework to determine what students are learning ASAP after a unit of study is completed.
Tests given months or years later to determine if students learned what they were taught are totally useless because they never take into account that human memories are not the same as a digital file on a computer. Humans often forget all or some of what they were taught, if they learned it at all, since some students do not know how to study or avoid doing what it takes to learn what they are taught.
The human mind, with little or no guidance, often while we sleep, is also capable of revising memories so what we remember later on often does not match an actual event and sometimes creates memories of things we never did or saw.
Those teacher made tests should not be used for grading purposes. They should only be used to help teachers improve their lessons teaching methods.
Teacher made tests should not be used to judge teachers or students in any way.
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I don’t agree with your first statement, Lloyd. I think that diagnostic tests and formative tests can both be extremely useful. I also think that summative tests that are KNOWLDGE-BASED are important in some fields–medical, legal, and engineering licensing exams, for example.
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Many argue that these licensing exams should be abolished because they have a disparate negative impact on black and Hispanic test-takers.
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/opinion/commentary/story/2020-12-07/abolishing-the-bar-exam-bias
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Well, and many can’t find Texas on a map.
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The only reason I can see that one might want to find Texas on a map is if they planned to travel there.
Why would anyone in their right mind want to do that these days?
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true that
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On the other hand, I suppose if one is currently living in Texas, it might be useful to know where Texas is located relative to other states and Mexico in order to plan one’s exit.
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Although all one really needs to know is the interstate highways that lead out of Texas, which really doesn’t even require knowing where Texas is.
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Escape from Alcatraz
All my hexes live in Texas
Texas is the place I’d really love to leave
All my hexes live in Texas
That’s why the interstate is calling me
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Muskrat AIx just x’d out what was left of Twitter.
“If done right, the x would be, would serve people’s financial needs to such a degree that over time it would become over half the global financial system.”
Clueless, huh? But this just in from Bob Shepherd:
“If done right, my commentary on Diane Ravitch’s blog, would serve people’s cognitive needs to such a degree that over time it would become over half of every thought had by human brains globally.”
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Elon Muskox “Free Speech Absolutist”
As I indicated below, I don’t know why we the public fund private schools.
But I also don’t know why we continue to fund con artists like Elon (billions in emissions credits to Tesla and his dangerous Full Self Driving (sic) and billions to SpaceX for wasteful, bogus moon and Mars missions)
I don’t know , but I can guess.
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yup
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Escape from Alcatex
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Starring Clint Eastwood
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Or maybe “Escape from Texatraz” would be better
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It’s good to hear admission tests are required less. Many of us old-timers were lucky, in that a high school diploma was all you needed–along with a small amount of cash–to get into many or most public colleges when we attended. The Ohio State University was one of those universities when I attended in the 1950’s and ’60’s. But in order for the colleges to be more open and affordable, they need more support from state and federal governments.
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If we the tax payers quit funding private colleges and universities like Yale, Princeton and Harvard (each of which receives hundreds of millions in federal research grants every year, despite having multibillion dollar endowments), at a cost of billions of dollars every year, there would be a lot more federal money available for state universities AND the state universities could attract away the professors currently working at places like Harvard (because these profs would no longer be able to get federal research grants at the private schools)
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Private schools like Harvard have been sucking on the public teat for the benefit of the few for far too long.
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I can’t see why private colleges and universities should get public funding (in the form of research grants) any more than that private, charter and religious k-12 schools should get public funding.
The private schools don’t even have to abide by the rules the public schools are required to follow. For example, schools like Harvard and Yale have a totally separate admissions program that admits children of former grads and donors.
It’s actually a vicious circle because elite schools like Harvard and Yale are able to maintain their status at least partly due to public funding , which has the effect of attracting more federal research funding and maintaining their elite status.
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Turning off the public research funding spigot to schools like Harvard and Yale would not significantly impact the quality of research for two reasons.
First, there are already top notch researchers at public universities who could benefit from funding increases that could occur if funds currently going to private schools were made available to them.
Second, top researchers at private schools like Harvard would leave in a heartbeat if they lost their federal funding (from NSF, NIH and other federal agencies). These folks would quickly move to public universities .
Finally, schools like Harvard and Yale have multibillion dollar endowments which they keep increasing at our expense because any research money their profs get is money the schools don’t have to spend.
As I said, it’s a vicious circle
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Right on cue! This is great news for mediocre children of rich parents.
From the research featured in another post from this morning:
“The last reason rich kids are more likely to be admitted is because they tend to have higher non-academic ratings that make their applications pop. Think extracurricular activities, compelling letters of recommendation, and guidance counselors who help them engineer perfect resumes and personal statements. This explains about 30% of their advantage.”
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The other post said more rich people apply to universities (because they can afford it without going into debt for the rest of their lives). Since the tests are not accurate predictors of anything, getting rid of them improves the quality of applicants, rich kids included.
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The rich parents can simply donate money to Harvard or pay a coach at Stanford* so their children don’t even need to compete with everyone else, at any rate.
*just do it through a Swiss Bank account so there is no tecord.
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Doesn’t this leave grades as the sole criteria? That leads to grade inflation, tremendous pressure on teachers, and on low achieving, but very bright students who don’t like common core and the corporate curriculum…
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There’s also extracurriculars, letters of recommendation, and B.S. personal statements written and edited by parents and paid consultants. All great news for applicants with wealth and connections!
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We’ve gone in the wrong direction with these stupid tests. They need to be revamped to be tests of KNOWLEDGE. What do prospective college students KNOW?
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There is a reason the tests “went” the way they did.
They were purposefully designed to exclude “undesirables”.
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There’s also extracurriculars, letters of recommendation, and B.S. personal statements written and edited by parents and paid consultants. All great news for applicants with wealth and connections!
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oops wrong spot.
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So maybe we should re-think the entire notion of whether we can determine (much less “measure”) who is “worthy” of college. Maybe there is no such thing as an “elite” student and maybe no on is more “intelligent” than anyone else. What makes the rich kid who gets good grades and test scores and has time for extracurriculars a better student than the kid who gets mediocre or even bad grades and doesn’t do extracurriculars because they have to work full time to support their family and/or take care of their siblings and/or other relatives? What makes the kid who can memorize entire books better than the kid who knows how to get people to open up and talk to them and help them with their problems or the kid who can look at an engine, figure out exactly what’s wrong and fix it?
And maybe if there are no “elite” students, there are no “elite” colleges either. Maybe “elite” colleges are only great because of the opportunity to hobnob with sons and daughters of CEOs and government officials and other powerful people who then pave the way those young people to get into similarly powerful positions?
Maybe if we really care about education and having the best educated and most skilled population we should re-think the entire concept of what education is and who gets it. Maybe we could focus on facilitating every child to develop their own interests and talents to best fulfill themselves and contribute to building the best society.
If we went with that model, would education look like 20 kids in a classroom sitting at desks all studying the same thing and competing with each other on timed, solitary tests to see who “learned” more? Or would it look like collaborative learning which culminates in actually doing something together? Would we admit kids to college based on competitive grades and test scores, or based on proven track record in areas where they have been able to pursue and develop their interests and skills? Maybe kids who are interested in a particular field or activity should receive education and training in such fields and activities regardless of how well they jump through hoops.
The world really shouldn’t be a competitive place. There is plenty of need for people to do all kinds of things. If all fields were recognized as equally valid and essential, there wouldn’t be anything more glamourous about being a doctor than being an HVAC tech, for example.
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I dream of that day. Getting rid of tests is a good start.
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Wonderful post, dienne.
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“Maybe if we really care about education and having the best educated and most skilled population we should re-think the entire concept of what education is and who gets it. Maybe we could focus on facilitating every child to develop their own interests and talents to best fulfill themselves and contribute to building the best society.”
Bingo, bango, boingo! ! ! We have a winner. Give that nice lady a Kewpie Doll!
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Along with the misuse and overuse of testing, this insightful article by Jan Resseger is almost like a companion article. Education needs to move beyond the of test and punish era and so-called reform. While Resseger focuses on the lexicon, it is the whole standards mentality and business mindset that has made teaching and learning in many public schools unbearable. Education must focus on students’ needs above all else and work to make our schools more equitable. https://janresseger.wordpress.com/2023/07/20/38953/
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Terrific article, thanks rt.
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Incidentally, I suspect that the reason so many colleges are going test-optional is that most, with the exception of the so-called “elite” schools are accepting pretty much anyone who applies. Colleges are having a hard enough time filling slots – they can’t afford to be too picky.
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Very good point. There’s a weird market now where there is maximum demand at the very top and a whole lot of good schools that are sinking.
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In other news, McConnell.exe encountered an error and had to restart.
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Turtle in the headlights.
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It’s turtle all the way down.
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This freezing up happens with the older model KKK Bots.
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This just in:
In UAP hearings, whistleblower claims that U.S. has complete nonhuman remains, identifies these as Mitch McConnell.
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This UFO sh!t is so weird. I’d like to see the Venn diagram of people who believe aliens are among us and people who think the earth is 6,000 years old.
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And ones who think that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.
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So, if it comes down to this, whom will Kentucky choose to replace Mitch? Joseph Goebbels is dead, and Earl Turner is fictional.
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Saw this answer to your question on Twitter, posted by Sherilynn Ifill:
“For those wondering how an open seat would be filled if McConnell stepped down, the new KY law requires that the Gov must appoint someone from the same party as the departing Senator & only from a list of names provided by the state Republican committee. So there’s that.”
McConnell knew he had health issues and asked the KY legislature to pass this law so the Dem Gov could not replace him with a Dem
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!!!!!!
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Conniving old SOB. Beshear needs to go to court immediately to challenge that law.
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Mitch McConnell has the appearance of one of those bloated , mutilated cattle that they find at Skinwalker Ranch.
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He’s far too stupid to be an alien who managed to navigate the vast expanse of interstellar space to get here.
Far more likely to be a result of their research.
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Mediocre children of rich parents have never had a problem getting into the “best” colleges and universities. The entrance exams were never really needed because they only correlate with SES, and admissions has all that information already. Ever heard of legacy admissions? How about Rick Singer of the college admissions scandal that sent parents to prison for blatant cheating and pay-to-play on their college apps. The idea that these families had all the advantages and still had no issue using even more money to lie and cheat to get their precious kids into USC was a new low. Donald Trump? George W. Bush? A few short examples from what must be a very long list of existing wealthy mediocrity that is still embraced by those institutions of higher learning (I see you, Harvard and Yale) determined to weed out the great unwashed from those deemed more worthy simply by their birthright ($$$).
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There are plenty of mediocre children of rich parents who don’t get into the best universities. I know many personally.
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As per Shepart: John Galt was my pick, but like Turner, he’s fictitious too.
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haaaa!
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Yes, it’s Shepherd. Your piece on the weirdness of Christianity was a good read – thanks! As for Plato & Socrates, they lived in a time when oral communication, for individuals and groups, was essential for gaining knowledge (and wisdom) as they believed the spoken word was nearer to what is true than the written word. Wouldn’t hurt if our schools returned to emphasizing oral expression of one’s thinking (as was my case growing up in the late 50s and 60s) rather than killing off the desire to learn with testing.
`
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YES YES YES
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From the above, lets assume that high school GPAs will still matter in college applications. If that’s the case, it’s a welcome boost to the much maligned professionalism of those who teach high school, not to mention those who teach K-8. Now if we can only get rid of test-driven NCLB and RTP…..
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I wonder if I can use this information to convince my principal to stop forcing all the 8th graders to take the PSAT. The students not only have to waste their time and be degraded and demoralized, they also have to give College Board, with revenue that far exceeds expenses, their home and email addresses, phone numbers, and information about their parents’ income, etc. The tests aren’t just a distortion of academic experience; they’re an unwarranted invasion of privacy by a company with gobs of money and a wealthy, connected CEO in David Coleman.
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“they also have to give College Board, with revenue that far exceeds expenses, their home and email addresses, phone numbers, and information about their parents’ income…”
That’s exactly the point. And then the College Board will sell this information to colleges, and they will send all kinds of solicitation letters to students to apply to their schools.
Here’s author Nicholas Lemann –– whose book The Big Test is all about the SAT –– on the SAT’s severe limitations:
“The test has been, you know, fetishized. This whole culture and frenzy and mythology has been built around SATs. Tests, in general, SATs, in particular, and everybody seems to believe that it’s a measure of how smart you are or your innate worth or something. I mean, the level of obsession over these tests is way out of proportion to what they actually measure. And ETS, the maker of test, they don’t actively encourage the obsession, but they don’t actively discourage it either. Because they do sort of profit from it…every time somebody takes an SAT, it’s money to the ETS and the College Board…there is something definitely weird about the psychological importance these tests have in America versus what they actually measure. And indeed, what difference do they make? Because, there’s two thousand colleges in the United States, and 1,950 of them are pretty much unselective. So, the SAT is a ticket to [only] a few places.”
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Socrates believed that writing was not an effective means of communicating knowledge. To him, face-to-face communication was the only way one person could transmit knowledge to another. My take on it: one can learn of many things by reading written texts. It is only through discussing texts— soliciting others’ interpretations for comparison, collaboration– that one learns [gains wisdom] from them.
Similarly, on the invention of writing, Plato opined (in Phaedrus, prox 370 bc): “What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only the semblance of wisdom, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much while for the most part they know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom they will be a burden to their fellows.”
Tests assess what a student remembers of facts (or of others’ interpretations/ opinions) conveyed to them during schooling. They can be handy tools– studying for tests helps students hone their memories. But they don’t assess what a student has learned from memorizing these inputs. They don’t assess learning. What does?
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As a p.s. to my post above, years ago I read of a 1980’s teacher exchange between Chinese and US math educators. Have never been able to find supporting cites, but the gist went something like this.
According to the Chinese educators, math ed teaches students from a young age to derive algorithms on their own. They gave examples. Kids’ class is divided into a few teams. Teacher puts a problem on the board. Kids have manipulables etc & are asked to come up with the “best” way to solve the problem. Each team presents their method. Typically several teams come up with methods that correctly solve the problem. Class then, with guidance of teacher, analyzes what went wrong with the others, and which of the remaining is most efficient.
The Chinese teachers’ criticism of US math ed: it taught students to memorize the typically-used algorithms, and then repeatedly practice them on different sets of data. So, two issues: (1) the concepts behind the algorithm are not learned, so it’s easily forgotten unless routinely practiced; (2) the average student never grasps that there are various approaches to solving problems, nor to question given methods.
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