More and more families, colleges and a few elected officials are increasingly questioning the SAT and ACT’s value in the university admissions process. Consequently, the notorious standardized tests are facing what could be the greatest challenge in their long histories, PBS News reports.
In fact, a record number of colleges have stopped requiring the tests, and even LSU has followed the trend by lessening the scores’ weight in the overall admissions process—though it’s still required.
One in four institutions no longer require these tests for admission, says Michael Nietzel, president emeritus of Missouri State University. Combined with tutoring that wealthy families can afford, extra time their kids are more likely to get than lower-income classmates and downright cheating, he says, “they’ve lost their luster as a common yardstick.”
The goal of going test-optional, for many of its advocates, is to increase diversity; low-income students typically have lower scores than their more affluent peers, putting them at a disadvantage in admission. The College Board last year stopped asking test-takers about their parents’ income, but answers from previous years showed scores going up as family income increases; scores overall were also lower on average for black and Latino students than for whites and Asians. Read the full story.
