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Photo illustration by Danielle Ternes/Education Dive; photograph by Damircudic/E+ and
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Deep Dive
Is this the end for college admissions tests?
With testing sites closed this spring and more colleges dropping their
requirements for the SAT and ACT, longtime frustrations with their
makers are simmering.
By Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
June 30, 2020
It took hours of debate in front of their computers, but as their
day-long virtual meeting in late May wound to a close, the University
of California System regents were ready to vote.
One by one, they unanimously greenlit one of the country's biggest and
most influential public higher education systems to largely drop SAT
and ACT scores as an admissions requirement. By the view of most
observers, the governing board's decision fundamentally altered the
role of standardized tests among colleges, with the assumption that
many institutions would follow suit.
The Twittersphere celebrated the system rejecting the tests, which
opponents have deemed racist and skewed to favor the wealthy. One
consultant tweeted that she "cried tears of joy" as she watched the
votes be counted.
Not so joyous were the testing agencies, for which the devastating blow compounded weeks of bad news.
The coronavirus has shifted the already accelerating test-optional
movement into warp speed. It is also making test-taking more
challenging for students, a situation the College Board tried to
anticipate.
The nonprofit came under a torrent of criticism last month for its
administration of at-home Advanced Placement exams, which resulted in a
class-action lawsuit. Only a fraction of students reported issues
submitting their answers, according to the College Board. But the
problems were amplified on social media by students who lamented the
glitches and the prospect of retaking the hours-long tests for which
they prepared all year.
The College Board later had to nix its at-home SAT, citing a lack of
high-quality internet for all test-takers. Students also encountered
bugs on the website to register for the fall and summer SAT.
Meanwhile, the ACT's chief executive, Marten Roorda, stepped down
abruptly after the UC vote. The organization also announced rounds of
furloughs and other staff reductions. And it released a single-spaced,
57-page list of exam sites that would be closed for June, indicating
the pandemic's effect on testing access.
These episodes suggest trouble for the testing duopoly, which is
financially pinched because of the pandemic, industry experts say. But
the fumbles are unlikely to completely erode testing providers'
relationships with colleges, some of which still rely on the tests and
other services they offer.
Momentum building
The testing business may have already peaked. The supply of high school
graduates is expected to shrink in the coming years, meaning fewer
students will be taking college-entrance exams.
Even before the coronavirus shuttered campuses in the U.S., colleges
were transitioning to test-optional policies at a record pace. More
than 50 institutions in 2019 — the most in a single year — decided they
would no longer require applicants to submit scores, according to
FairTest, a group that advocates for controlled use of standardized
assessments.
Experts say the pandemic may lead more schools to give up standardized tests altogether.
Each college that changes its admissions practices to deemphasize the tests corrodes the testing providers' business models.
And many institutions are.
More than half of four-year colleges in the U.S. — at least 1,270
institutions — won't require scores from students seeking to enroll in
fall 2021, according to FairTest. That count includes colleges that
haven't historically required scores. According to one industry group,
around three-quarters of colleges required the tests as of 2016.
Among the colleges to not require scores next fall are high-profile
institutions such as Texas Tech University and the California Institute
of Technology, as well as the entire Ivy League. The Ivy League
universities' move to test-optional, along with CalTech's decision to
stop using the tests entirely for two admissions cycles, significantly
shakes up the testing status quo, as experts have said elite
institutions would be the most reluctant to drop them.
Many colleges to make the switch this spring say they are doing so
temporarily and because of the pandemic. But previous experiments with
test-optional policies have seen few schools return to their previous
admissions standards, said Jay Rosner, executive director of the
Princeton Review Foundation, which helps underserved students prepare
for standardized exams. Rosner is aware of only a handful of colleges
that started asking for scores again after a test-flexible pilot.
"A lot of the younger admissions professionals will experience test-optional and they will like it," he said.
'An inflection point'
The recent test cancelations, which led many colleges to take up
test-optional admissions, threaten an important income stream for the
companies that make them.
The SAT represents a considerable chunk of the College Board's revenue,
which topped $1 billion in 2018, experts say, though the agency has not
historically disclosed how much it makes off the exam. The group lists
a $68 registration fee for the SAT with the essay, and an estimated 1
million high school juniors missed out on the test this spring. The
base ACT costs $42.50, with $16 more for the writing portion, according
to its website.
Publicly, the College Board and ACT have tried to show sensitivity to
students in light of the pandemic. In announcing it wouldn't offer the
at-home, online SAT this fall, the College Board urged colleges to
accommodate applicants who were unable to take the test.
"We know demand is very high and the registration process for students
and families under this kind of pressure is extremely stressful,"
College Board CEO David Coleman said in a statement. "There are more
important things than tests right now. In making these difficult
decisions we focused on reducing the anxiety that students and families
are experiencing this year."
Still, the agencies' missteps have done little to endear them to their
consumers: students, parents, high school teachers and counselors, and
college admissions professionals, many of whom have united in their
frustration, said Jon Boeckenstedt, Oregon State University's vice
provost for enrollment management.
The disapproval seems much more intense than in previous years, said
Boeckenstedt, a vocal critic of admissions exams who wrote a lengthy
blog post (which he has since taken down) calling for Coleman's
resignation.
"The colleges have been passively endorsing the work of the College
Board by requiring the tests," he added. "But I'm hearing personally an
increasing level of dissatisfaction among college (administrators)."
One reason many institutions are "unenthusiastic partners" with the
College Board is because admissions professionals are aware of the
tests' biases, Boeckenstedt said. A significant body of research
supports claims that the tests favor rich, white students. A lawsuit
filed last year against the UC System argues test questions are
racially biased and that lower-income students can't afford the same
extensive prep and tutoring as their more affluent peers.
Yet testing inequities are reaching the greater national consciousness,
and it shows, said Bob Schaeffer, FairTest's interim executive
director. He points to a leadership change at the National Association
for College Admission Counseling (NACAC).
Angel Pérez, currently the vice president for enrollment and student
success at Trinity College, in Connecticut, will replace Joyce Smith as
the group's CEO in July. Pérez is a self-identified proponent of
test-optional admissions. Smith, meanwhile, worked for the College
Board early in her career.
In an interview, Pérez painted himself as a "uniter" who would seek to
work with the testing agencies, rather than as an outright opponent of
them or their products.
"It's an inflection point. So much of what we do is being disrupted,
it's the perfect storm for reinvention," Pérez said. While he has never
seen so much public backlash against the College Board and ACT, he said
the companies are "key" in the college admissions pipeline.
"There have been some very serious logistical issues that have not been
managed well," he said, noting that the organizations have been
perceived to "lack empathy" for their customers. "We are really at a
moment in our nation's history where equity and access, which always
has been a priority, must be the No. 1 priority."
Hard 'to untangle'
But many admissions professionals say the two testing giants have been
more concerned with preserving their revenue streams than with students
who are wrestling with how to apply for and afford college.
The College Board's statement asking colleges to be lenient with test
scores came "eight weeks too late," said Christopher Lydon, vice
president for enrollment management and marketing at the Catholic
University of America, in Washington, D.C.
Lydon argued the pandemic exacerbated the focus on money, though he
added that the College Board has attempted to improve college access.
The group tried to introduce a metric that would signal whether a
student hailed from an impoverished neighborhood or school. The
so-called "adversity score" would have been provided to admissions
professionals, but it was scrapped last year amid heavy criticism that
a student's challenges with inequity and poverty could be boiled down
to one number. The College Board kept the information it used to
calculate the score at admissions professionals' disposal.
But the perception that the College Board wasn't responsive to
students' needs this spring has strained its relationships with campus
officials, said Scott Steinberg, vice president of university
admissions at the University of New England, in Maine.
"It's hard for me to untangle their stated mission of putting students
first and promoting access, with their status as a nonprofit
organization with a billion dollars in revenue," Steinberg said.
A dozen College Board trustees Education Dive contacted did not respond
to a request for comment, and two press representatives did not grant
Education Dive's request for interviews.
Janet Godwin, the ACT's interim CEO, said the organization "100%"
supports colleges choosing to go test-optional because of the pandemic,
which added stress for students and their families and closed down ACT
and SAT testing sites.
But the situation highlights one argument for standardized test scores,
Godwin said. The pandemic scrambled transcripts, with some high schools
moving to pass/fail grading or waiving graduation requirements, she
said, noting that a test offers a consistent measure by which colleges
can judge students.
She waived away criticism that the tests are biased against needy
students, pinning the blame on underfunded school districts that can't
help students prepare.
"I think that argument is a little confounding and not completely accurate," Godwin said.
Why use the providers at all?
Colleges don't rely on the College Board and ACT only for their tests.
Institutions, including some that don't review scores, buy student data
from the College Board and other sources. The College Board gets its
information from SAT test-takers, who provide personal details about
where they are located and their academic interests.
With the facts they've purchased, colleges target students who fit
their academic profiles. The data collection has come under fire over
privacy concerns. And The Wall Street Journal last year detailed how
colleges use the information to artificially inflate their exclusivity
rates, which helps them rise in national rankings. Colleges
deliberately market to applicants they know won't make the cut, the
Journal reported. But those students likely would not have applied had
the institution not reached out.
Still, colleges maintain the information is vital for helping them
conduct searches and diversify their student bodies. Administrators
such as Boeckenstedt see room for other companies to break up the
College Board's large hold on the data collection. He argued in a 2014
essay that Google could manage the student data and the college
application process.
ACT and other services such as Niche offer student data, but not at the
same scale as the College Board. One admissions professional described
the College Board's hold on the data as a "quasi-monopoly."
Its data is arguably more valuable than the test scores, Schaeffer
said, because of how that information shapes colleges' ability to
recruit. If fewer students took the SAT, the data resulting from the
exam would be less rich and therefore less valuable to colleges.
Still, the College Board has found some success, particularly during
Coleman's tenure. As states looked for standardized tests that could
help them meet state and federal accountability benchmarks, the College
Board marketed them the SAT. The College Board doubled its lobbying
expenses under Coleman, think tank New America detailed, which resulted
in decisions like Colorado flipping from the ACT to the SAT as a
statewide assessment.
ACT has also tried to expand its business, in its case by offering ed tech services.
Under Roorda in 2017, ACT invested $10.5 million in New Markets Venture
Partners, a venture capital fund that invests in workforce and ed tech
companies. About two years later, it acquired Mawi Learning, a company
that makes professional development materials for teachers and social
and emotional learning curriculum. Just last month, it snapped up
ScootPad, an adaptive learning platform.
These purchases didn't vault ACT over the College Board in the market,
said Adam Ingersoll, co-founder and principal of Compass Education, a
company that helps students prepare for standardized tests. While the
ACT test briefly surpassed the SAT in popularity between 2012 and 2018,
the SAT has largely been the dominating force.
And not just in test-takers. Compared to the College Board's $1 billion
in revenue for the 2018 calendar year, ACT brought in just $350 million
in revenue for the year ending August 2018, according to tax records.
But ACT's investments under Roorda weren't meant to compete with the
College Board, Godwin said. Rather, they aimed to reinforce ACT's
position as a multifaceted organization that helps transition students
from secondary school to college. She believes they have panned out and
said ACT will continue that approach.
Roorda, for his part, was more candid and aggressive than his
predecessors, Ingersoll said, an approach that may have ultimately
harmed him. In discussions over whether the University of California
System would continue to accept test scores, Roorda took a
sharp-elbowed approach to lobbying, said Schaeffer, whose organization
also was advocating to UC.
Prior to their vote, Roorda sent the UC regents a strongly worded
statement, saying their decision would exacerbate anxiety among
students during an already stressful period.
The system's decision to eventually drop the tests, and its likely
impact on ACT's business, was ultimately viewed "as the final straw" in
Roorda's tenure, according to Ingersoll, who is based in ACT's hometown
of Iowa City, Iowa, and others familiar with the matter.
Godwin declined to discuss personnel changes within the organization.
Common criticisms of the test providers linger. ACT squandered goodwill
in the past decade through several unforced errors, Ingersoll said.
Neither group has generously compensated their testing supervisors or
proctors, and their public communications "are comically inept," he
said, pointing to their recent mishaps as evidence.
Godwin said she understands that the last-minute testing cancelations
frustrated students, families and counselors. In some cases, an
unexpected problem, such as a lack of hand sanitizer, meant sites
couldn't open.
"Our goal is to be as proactive in our communication as possible and
give students as much time and information as soon as we have it so
they can plan their next steps," Godwin. "That's something we intend to
improve on."
Not all on testing providers
Even the most ardent critics of the two organizations don't consider them all bad.
Colleges, too, play a role in tackling the inequity issues the tests
embody. And in a way, institutions have failed to do so completely,
Ingersoll said. If colleges truly wanted to hold the College Board
accountable, they would stop using their other products, including the
recruitment data, he added.
But many college officials and students find value in the tests. For
one, institutions need an objective measure to gauge a student's
academic performance, which is not always high school grades, said Jed
Applerouth, president and founder of test-prep company Applerouth
Tutoring. Some research supports rampant grade inflation, he said,
citing accusations that high school GPAs have risen with little change
in academic performance.
"At least to me, there's something comfortable about a standardized
measure," Applerouth said. "That students can demonstrate their
knowledge instead of (that) their teacher liked them and gave them a
pass."
Most high-performing high school students will still take the SAT and
ACT in order to be competitive when seeking out colleges, Ingersoll
said. In response to the UC vote, the College Board pointed out that
California students tend to apply to private colleges in the state as
well as out-of-state schools. And many still require an SAT or ACT
score.
Colleges, meanwhile, will likely continue to find value in the College Board's data, Catholic University's Lydon said.
"I can't see anyone stop working with them completely," he added.
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