Standardized Testing in College Admissions

In high school I took the ACT in order to be admitted to the University of Michigan. During that stressful period in my life, I often wondered — — how good is the ACT/SAT at measuring student performance?

Students may take the SAT or the ACT. Students often will perform better on one test. From this we can conclude that both are imperfect measurements of student success. If either one accurately measured student success, then all students should be performing equally as well on each exam. Cathy O’Neil refers to methods like these as Weapons of Math Destruction (O’Neil). Relying on mathematical models to make decisions may seem like a good idea, but can often have underlying consequences. Even having the option to take different exams can be problematic. Some students have the luxury of choosing their exam, while other students may not be as lucky. Those with more wealth and resources are able to choose which exam they perform better on, whereas another student may struggle to attend one session due to their life circumstances. Circumstances outside of number between 1 and 36 do not holistically capture someone’s academic potential.

These challenges have allowed the SAT and ACT to become business models. Companies make money by promising better testing results. Wealthy students who can afford hours of preparation to prepare for test nuances will likely perform better. If you’re both wealthy and immoral you might pay someone to steal the correct answers, impersonate and take the test for you, or have a proctor adjust your answers. A similar problem in which Washington schools used standardized testing to measure teacher performance resulted in teachers artificially increasing their students’ scores by changing their answers (O’Neil). This further proves standardized testing flaws beyond just the ACT/SAT.

If these and many more inequalities exist — should colleges really being using these in their admissions process? The main argument for standardized testing is to have a quantitative way to measure student performance across all applicants, as compared to letter grades which vary based on high school. I believe standardized testing should be optional for those who want to showcase their performance to colleges, but also that colleges should place less value on those scores when determining admissions. This two-fold approach would protect students from being negatively impacted by these tests, while also not being unfairly rewarded for their privilege.

References

O’Neil, C. (2016). Introduction. In Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. New York: Crown Publishing Group