A growing number of universities in the US are abandoning the use of standardized tests as a key factor in the admissions process. Last month,…
A growing number of universities in the US are abandoning the use of standardized tests as a key factor in the admissions process. Last month, Creighton Universityannounced that it won’t require hopeful applicants to submit ACT or SAT test results beginning in 2020, joining the likes of Arizona State University, DePaul University, Drake University, University of Arizona, and University of Chicago, among others.
Why are these respected institutions ditching these test scores, which have been a core tenet of assessing college readiness for nearly 60 years? The answer is simple: they aren’t an accurate way to assess students’ knowledge and potential.
Despite the growing movement against using ACT and SAT exams as the be-all-end-all benchmark for assessing college readiness, more students than ever are taking them –roughly four million in 2018. The results haven’t been promising. More than half of SAT takers still aren’t considered ready for college-level courses, while recent ACT scores actually showed adrop in overall college readiness.
Why are the results so poor? Are the underperforming test takers simply not ready for college? The answer to these questions is the very reason many in the field of cognitive science believe these exams shouldn’t matter in the first place – moment-in-time evaluations are fraught with problems and don’t provide an accurate view of real knowledge or potential. We have the technology to do better.
Think back to the exams you’ve taken in your life. What do you remember most? Is it the material tested on the exam, or the anxiety you felt about how much of your future was riding on one set of questions? That anxiety illustrates the underlying problem with the SAT and ACT exams and an inherent unfairness that negatively impacts many students.
