Colleges turning their backs on the SAT and ACT scores

Rollins College has announced that, for students applying for admission to the class entering in Fall 2008, submission of SAT or ACT scores will be optional.
“It is too easy to be distracted by low test scores that are not accurate predictors of a student’s college academic potential,” said David Erdmann, Dean of Admission for Rollins’ College of Arts & Sciences. “We want to take a more holistic approach and believe that a candidate’s academic record, level of challenge in course work, talents, interests, and potential to contribute to the Rollins and local community should be as important, if not more important, than test scores.”
Other colleges and universities waiving the required submission of SAT or ACT scores include Bates College (Maine), Bowdoin College (Maine), College of the Holy Cross (Massachusetts), Dickinson College (Pennsylvania), Franklin & Marshall College (Pennsylvania), Hampshire College (Massachusetts) and Mount Holyoke College (Massachusetts).
Rollins College is the first highly-selective southern college or university to make the submission of these test scores optional for admission consideration. FairTest, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, provides more information about standardized testing nationwide (visit http://www.fairtest.org).
“Liberal arts colleges hold a special place among institutions of higher education in America,” said Rollins College President Lewis Duncan. “Consequently, we want to offer gifted students more flexibility in the admission process.”

 

This test stuff is tricky.

For example, what about a kid in a middle school who gets mediocre grade but aces the statewide or national tests that determine school success?

Shouldn't that kid get some credit for that?

 

I've often said that it is not indicative of what you will do in college. Some of the brightest people I know didn't grade out highly in standardized tests.

 

But it also goes both ways. I had terrible -- TERRIBLE -- grades in high school. But I had a lot of impressive work-related things on my resume and my SAT score is probably what got me into college. I can't imagine it was my C-plus average.

 

What were your grades in college, SC?

 

Aren't you essentially saying he/she should get credit for slacking?

 

Umm, well, uhh, I left after a semester.

 

My friend's daughter goes to a terrible high school, at least half the kids won't go to college, lots of suspensions and fights and many kids just don't show up for days at a time. 18 yeasr old sophmores and the like. She pulls down straight A's. When we were over their house we looked at her text books and what they working on, and as a 10th grader, she's doing less work at a slower pace than the kids in our neighborhood are doing in 8th grade. My friend's daughter is smart, but at this rate she'll pull in a 4.0 doing minimal work. As long as she doesn't get suspended and stays on the academic track, which about half the student population does, she'll graduate at the top of her class with honors.
If things generally hold true, our school system's kids with about "B" to "B+" average will out score my friend's school system honors graduates on the SATs by a large margin.
Without standardized tests you are truely comparing apples to celery.

 

abbott, there are things taught in one school system that isn't taught in another. the tests can't tell what a person is capable of. It only says what they have learned up to a point. Not everyone is privileged to have a great public or private school education.

 

Studies consistently have shown that the SAT is less reliable as a predictor of academic success than HS grades.
So maybe you're comparing apples to celery without a standardized test, but the tests you're using now mean you're examining the apples and celery through a kaleidoscope rather than a magnifying glass.
Since you're into metaphors and all.

 

How would you compare a student who has a 3.5 from Stuyvesant High School in Manhatten and a student that has a 3.5 GPA from Anacostia High School in DC?

 

That's the trick, isn't it?
So they invented these little tests that favor the kids who come out of the richest schools and richest families, and voila they have an excuse for accepting the richest kids.