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.

At present, students borrow money from a variety of sources, mainly the federal government. Colleges receive this money, apply it toward their students’ expenses, and let their graduates repay their loans to the government. Colleges have no reason to limit the number of students whom they admit, to maintain their admission and academic standards, to ensure the quality of education provided, or to moderate their tuition or fees. Students assume all the risks of those loans, even as, in too many cases, colleges engage in essentially predatory practices, especially for-profit schools which would otherwise not exist. In short, colleges have no stake in the entire process except for latent incentives to exploit easy government loans to students.

We need to put college funding on a sensible basis. The government should not lend money indiscriminately to anyone who wants it for college: serious students, students unsure of their purposes, students for whom college is a substitute for unemployment, students who want a two- or four-year vacation, etc. Instead, it should lend to colleges on their demand for funds; in turn, the colleges would make loans to students whom they believe, on the basis of their already existing application processes, likely to benefit from college and to repay their loans; in turn, the colleges would use their repayments to repay the government. Schools would assume the costs of their mistakes—perhaps some small allowance (ten percent?) for the inevitable mistakes—; otherwise, states would be guarantors of the loans of public colleges and universities. Private, especially, for-profit schools, would also assume the costs of their mistakes and require private-equity guarantors of their loans. For-profit schools, usually living off the federal dole and providing a poor education, would be forced to up-grade themselves or would drive themselves, or be driven, out of business.

The benefits of this approach to college funding are many. Colleges would face the risks of real consequences of excessive borrowing and reckless lending. To minimize or avoid these risks, they would focus on and improve the standards and quality of the education which they provide (not least by putting a brake on lowering academic standards and inflating grades), select students better matched to and suited for those standards and not admit others to swell enrollments for purposes of institutional and budgetary growth, and restrain increases in tuition and fees. As a result, their graduates would be more likely to get jobs and repay loans not inflated by unrestrained costs.

By requiring colleges to decide on these “small business loans” for students, the government could attend to ensuring that colleges do not “red line” certain populations.

The disadvantages of this approach are few and easily offset. Initially, a small downward shift of some students with weak backgrounds, admittedly, disproportionately minorities, to lower-ranked colleges would be compensated by the greater chance of their academic success, their increased graduation rates, and their better chances of employment and loan repayment.

The important points are that the government, after a one-time start-up fund for loans and some modest annual appropriations to maintain funding to serve demand (and supplement some loan defaults), would not incur large and uncontrolled expenses; students would have more assurance of getting the education for which they pay; and colleges would have incentives to do a better and more economical job of educating their students.