Article Summary
Posted by bio_man   Oct 11, 2017    4518 views

College panel recommends placing less importance on SAT and ACT scores

Some people enjoy standardized tests. The lack of open-ended responses. The comfort that there is only one correct answer. The cute little corresponding bubbles.

I'm not one of those people. Give me an essay, or even a fill-in-the-blank test, and I'm as cool as a cucumber. But give me a multiple-choice, standardized test and I'm as rotten as a mushroom (no offense to the fungus lovers, but I'm not one of those people, either.)

Luckily for people like me, a shift away from standardized tests has already begun, at least in the realm of some college admissions offices. In fact, colleges are now placing less emphasis on standardized testing and more emphasis on high school achievement and curriculum.

In addition to the problems with the test itself, the panel found that even test-prep courses provide unfair advantages. The private courses, funded not by schools but by students and/or their parents, leave those that can't afford to take them at a disadvantage.

I didn't take a test-prep course. I'm not actually sure if I could have afforded it or not. At the time, all I knew was that I was not willing to sacrifice my Saturday mornings. Maybe my SAT score suffered, but my weekends sure didn't.

Back to the pointwill we see a change in the college admission process? Some universities have already made SAT and ACT test scores optional, including Wake Forest University.

But it's hard to say if other universities will follow suit. Some argue that without the SAT, admissions offices would have to rely on less reliable standards such as GPA, which can vary in inflation from school to school. Only time will tell how many universities adhere to the panel's recommendations.

In the meantime, what is your opinion? Would you like to see a decrease in the importance of SAT and ACT scores? Would you still take the standardized tests, for your own personal satisfaction? Did your standardized test score help or hurt your college admission process?

On this test, there's more than one correct answer Slight Smile

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