Someone Finally Stops Inviting the SAT and ACT to the College Party
Let's say you are throwing a party for your closest friends. You arrange for everything at your house, buy chips and drinks, and plan fun games, hoping to impress everyone who shows up. Soon after the party gets started, a friend of a friend corners you and promises that he can make your party "even better!" He tells you about new fun games that will make entertaining easy, chips and drinks that will dazzle the tastebuds of every guest, and new ways to arrange furniture that will "totally get you noticed."
You agree to try his stuff out. What do you have to lose? It's not like he can make the party worse...
So he moves in all kinds of new toys and proceeds to take over pretty much everything. Your food gets pushed to the back to make room for his dishes. Your games get put aside to focus on his activities. After a few hours of this you look around and realize that all the stuff your new friend supplied isn't supplementing your party, it's swallowing it whole. And worse, everyone seems to be having a terrible time!
And then you realize that while you wanted your party to be awesome, you never needed this guy. Sure, he's got charts and graphs showing that some people sort of like his fancy chips and neat toys, but you can easily look around and notice that you aren't throwing a better party than the ones you've thrown in the past. This guy just scammed you by promising to help when he had no intention of helping at all...
This week, the National Association of College Admissions Counselors came to the same stunning realization about standardized testing. They note:
Although many colleges find benefit in using admission tests in admission decisions, it is the view of the Commission that there may be more colleges and universities that could make appropriate admission decisions without requiring standardized admission tests such as the ACT and SAT. The Commission encourages institutions to consider dropping the admission test requirements if it is determined that the predictive utility of the test or the admission policies of the institution (such as open access) support that decision and if the institution believes that standardized test results would not be necessary for other reasons such as course placement, advising, or research.
Let's sum that up: The NACAC, a widely respected group of college admissions officers, is advising all colleges to drop the SAT and ACT unless they have a specific reason to continue to require them.
I can't tell you how big this announcement is for the world of college admissions. For the last few years, I've continually stated that I believe colleges will be able to move past the ACT and SAT and focus on the parts of the college application that have been proven to matter (GPA, Extracurriculars, etc). Even as the score optional movement has gained momentum and continued studies proved that the SAT is worse at predicting success than GPA, I never believed the NACAC would take such a strong stand against standardized testing.
Mark this day on your calendar. Whatever domination the SAT and ACT have had on the world of college admissions is starting to slip. The NACAC isn't the first to criticize the testing industry, but this report is a devastating blow to the belief that every college needs standardized testing.
Someone finally pointed out that the SAT and ACT are ruining the party...
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What do you think? Is this the beginning of the end for standardized testing? Let us know in the comments!