SAT and ACT Tests Not the Best Predictors of College Success, Study Finds
The colleges and universities that use students’ SAT and ACT standardized test scores when making college admissions and financial aid decisions should base these decisions on tests that more closely reflect a student’s high school achievement and understanding of the high
school curriculum, according to the recommendations made by a new commission comprised of influential college admissions officials.
The commission, led by William R. Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid at Harvard University, recently completed a yearlong study
that questioned the relevancy of SAT and ACT tests for college admissions (“College Panel Calls for Less Focus
on SATs,” The New York Times, Sept. 21, 2008).
“It would be much better for the country,” Fitzsimmons says, “to have students focusing on high school courses that, based on evidence, will prepare them well for college and also prepare them well for the real world beyond college, instead of their spending enormous amounts of time trying to game the SAT.”
Admissions officers should rely instead on exams that are closer linked to high school curriculum like the College Board’s Advanced Placement tests and SAT Subject Tests and the International Baccalaureate exams when making admissions decisions, Fitzsimmons says. Unlike the SAT and ACT exams, he argues, these other tests have fewer ties to the billion-dollar test-prep industry.
Test Scores Indicate Students Who Are Well-Off Have An Advantage
Fitzsimmons’ research group, convened by the National Association for College
Admission Counseling, found that the nature of standardized testing places less emphasis on students learning their high school curriculum and more emphasis on test preparation — a discrepancy that favors affluent students who can afford test-prep resources.
The commission’s report found that standardized test scores emphasized the socio-economic differences of the SAT’s and ACT’s test-taking population and were reflective of a student’s race and ethnicity, socio-economic class, and their family’s level of educational
attainment.
“Society likes to think that the SAT measures people’s ability or merit,” Fitzsimmons says. “But no one in college admissions who visits the range of secondary schools we visit, and goes to the communities we visit … can come away thinking that standardized tests can be a measure of someone’s true worth or ability.”
Testing Companies, Schools Disagree on Report’s Findings
Representatives from the College Board — which administers the SAT exam, taken by 1.6 million high school students this year — and ACT Inc. — which is responsible for the ACT exam, taken by 1.4 million students this year — both disputed the report’s findings. The companies contend that their tests do measure students’ understanding of classroom material, not just their test-preparation skills, according to a Bloomberg article (“Colleges Shouldn’t Rely on SAT, ACT Tests Study
Says,” Sept. 22, 2008).
“Hundreds of national research studies show that the SAT is a valid predictor of college success,” the College Board wrote in a statement.
“We have long advised that the use of the SAT in the admission process is in combination with high school grades.”
Prior to the report’s recommendations, only 280 four-year schools, including Wake Forest University, Smith College, Bates College, and the University of Wisconsin, had stopped requiring the standardized tests for admissions, and the report calls for more schools to follow suit.