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Education Dive
Could coronavirus push more colleges to test-optional admissions?
As the virus spreads, some institutions are abandoning the SAT and ACT
as a requirement for applicants, a trend that experts predict will
likely continue.
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
March 23, 2020
2019 was a record year for advocates of the test-optional movement in
college admissions. More than 50 institutions, the most in a single
year, declared they would no longer require, or in some cases even
review, applicants' SAT and ACT scores.
Administrators at these schools said better metrics exist for judging
students' academic prowess. In some cases, their reasoning echoed
arguments made by opponents of college admissions testing, who say the
system is inherently biased and favors wealthy students who can afford
extensive test prep and tutoring.
Now, as the coronavirus continues to hamper the higher education
sector, it is exposing and exacerbating these disparities, standardized
testing experts told Education Dive.
The groups that run the SAT and ACT canceled testing dates scheduled
for this month through May, a critical window in which high school
juniors often take the exams in time to apply for college in the fall.
Already, low-income students encounter barriers to preparing and
sitting for the exams, and removing test dates stands to compound their
problems.
At least half a dozen colleges have announced in recent weeks that they
would either waive or alter their requirements that applicants take the
tests. Some were considering test-optional policies before the pandemic
hit, but it has pushed up their timelines, a trend that will likely
continue.
"This has magnified concerns people have about SAT and ACT being
legitimate measures of academic success," Bob Schaeffer, interim
executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing
(FairTest) and a vocal critic of admissions testing, told Education
Dive.
Schaeffer said the ACT, in particular, is intended to show mastery of
the high school curriculum. Because some K-12 schools have either
shifted online or altogether scrapped the last few months of the
academic year, he said, "it's even less of a common yardstick than it
ever was."
One of the institutions that elected to remove testing requirements for
students applying to enter in the summer and fall 2020 semesters is the
University of Toledo, in Ohio. It was considering more flexible
admissions policies for students entering in the spring of 2021, but
coronavirus accelerated its plans, Jim Anderson, vice president for
enrollment management, said in an interview with Education Dive.
Students applying to a few of the university's programs — nursing and
engineering, for instance — will still need to take the entrance exams,
Anderson said. But by and large, officials recognized that not all
students would be able to take the tests, he added.
The coronavirus has "reignited the digital divide conversation,"
Anderson said, noting that some students can't access adequate internet
connections away from school in order to prepare for the tests. High
school students whose schools have closed also can't easily work with
their counselors anymore, he said.
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