To Test or Not to Test
Preview:
For more than 75 years, two standardized tests, the SAT and the ACT, helped determine who would be admitted to most of the nation’s highly selective colleges and universities. But in 2020, when COVID-19 rendered access to testing difficult, most colleges and universities became test optional.
Critics of standardized testing rejoiced. In their view, test scores reflect and reinforce racial and socioeconomic inequities. In the pre-COVID era, roughly one-third of students from the top 0.1 percent of the income distribution scored 1300 or better on the SAT, compared to about 5 percent of middle-class students. Students from the poorest families rarely hit 1300; only one in five took the test. And the average SAT scores of Asian students (1219) substantially exceed those of white (1082), Hispanic (943) and Black students (908).
Originally published: September 16, 2024
Author: David Wippman
Position: President Emeritus
Institution: Hamilton College
Published by: Inside Higher Ed