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Education Dive
Support builds for test-optional college admissions amid coronavirus
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
April 13, 2020
Dive Brief:
Student Voice, a student-centric nonprofit that seeks equity in
education, is calling on all colleges to suspend admissions test
requirements because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The group launched a petition in late March calling on institutions to
adopt test-optional policies for the 2020-21 admissions cycle. During
an online press briefing Monday, it brought in admissions professionals
and high school and college students to speak in support of their
campaign.
At least 60 colleges have adopted test-optional policies this year (some temporarily), a trend experts predict will continue.
Dive Insight:
Advocates for test-optional policies were galvanized after a record
number of institutions last year decided applicants would no longer
need to submit SAT and ACT scores. Many observers were confident more
colleges would follow suit in 2020.
The spread of the coronavirus has only sped up the test-optional movement.
In the first week of April, at least 30 institutions waived their
admissions test requirements for students matriculating in the fall of
2021, according to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing
(FairTest).
Exam providers canceled or rescheduled multiple SAT and ACT testing
dates this spring, spurring concerns that disadvantaged students
especially would not be able to take them before applying for college.
These concerns mirror long-standing criticisms of the tests: that they
favor wealthy students who can pay for intensive tutoring and to take
the exams multiple times, and create more barriers for impoverished
students and students of color.
Activist groups, students and a local school district sued the
University of California System on those grounds last year, pressing it
to discontinue admissions testing. UC recently said it would not ask
applicants for the fall 2021 term to submit test scores, leading some
to believe it might do away with the requirement permanently.
The UC Board of Regents is due in May to vote on a test-optional
policy, and a favorable decision would likely reverberate in the
admissions sector. During Student Voice's press briefing, a student
representative on the board, Jamaal Muwwakkil, did not share which way
the regents are leaning, but he noted that the coronavirus had
exacerbated existing inequities with the tests nationwide.
Student Voice's digital petition has been signed by nearly 1,200 people as of Tuesday afternoon.
In Monday's briefing, admissions professionals from two private
colleges — Bowdoin College, in Maine, and the Worcester Polytechnic
Institute (WPI), in Massachusetts — said going test-optional has
benefitted them.
At WPI, students who do not submit test scores stay in school and
graduate at the same rate as those who do, Andrew Palumbo, assistant
vice president for enrollment management and dean of admissions and
financial aid, said during the briefing.
Research suggests test scores aren't the best metric for determining
future academic performance. One recent study showed high school GPA is
five times more accurate at predicting college graduation rates than
the ACT.
Whether institutions will scrap the tests entirely is unclear.
Selective universities tend to use the SAT and ACT to make cuts, and
some colleges and systems field tens of thousands of applications a
year and fall back on test scores to filter them.
Many admissions officers would like to abandon the tests, Jon
Boeckenstedt, Oregon State University's vice provost for enrollment
management told Education Dive in an email. But pressure from governing
bodies, or even faculty concerned with institutional prestige, prevent
them doing so. Oregon State announced last month it would drop the
testing requirement for freshmen entering in the fall of 2021 because
of the coronavirus.
"I think, in general, most college admissions officers would like to be
free of the constraints they feel tests impose on them," Boeckenstedt
wrote.
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