Should standardized tests be abolished?
Seniors have been stressing about college applications,as they compile a list of extracurricular activities, write dozens of essays, all while trying to keep their grades up. Thankfully, something that has reduced the weight of this stressful process is that most colleges and universities stayed “test optional” for this year’s admission cycle.
Even with test centers and schools opening up, many may not be comfortable with going in person to take a standardized test because they have an at-risk individual at home. In order to give everyone applying a fair chance at getting in, colleges made standardized tests optional, meaning that a SAT or ACT test would not be required for admission. Many college admissions officers have also clarified that one student would not have an advantage over another just because they turned in a test score.
With colleges not requiring tests and the UC schools not even allowing students to submit a standardized test score, an important question arises: should standardized tests even be a part of college admissions?
Standardized tests were created with the intended purpose of creating a fair metric for the measurement of knowledge. In many ways, the SAT and ACT uphold this motive even to this day. Unfortunately, teachers are inherently subjective and grading practices are not standardized between classes. Getting an A in a Calculus math class in Arizona could be the same as getting a C in the same class in North Carolina simply because the teachers for each class do not grade on the same metric, administer the same difficulty of tests, or use the same teaching methods. Standardized tests are an opportunity for students all over the nation to prove their knowledge because these tests have the same questions, are administered in identical conditions, and are graded by a machine. Additionally, states employ psychometricians, who are phycologists that analyze academic tests for discrimination. As Moulin explains, “a science test that had been developed in California and it asked about earthquakes […] the California kids were all over the subject of earthquakes, and the kids in Vermont had no idea about earthquakes”. Standardized tests account for this disparity in knowledge, and thus allow for accurate and fair testing. In fact, A 2013 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll shows that “75% of parents say standardized tests are a solid measure of their children’s abilities”.
In order to fully comprehend how fair the SAT is to testing, it is important to understand its origins. Carl Brigham, a psychologist who developed aptitude tests for soldiers during World War I, was commissioned by CollegeBoard to create the first SAT in the early 1920s. The army tests that Brigham created, however, were rigged to produce a specific result — one that led to the segregation of African Americans from the rest of the population. Science at the time inaccurately linked race and intelligence, and Brigham aimed to reflect this in his tests. Unfortunately, racial bias has not been completely eliminated from the SAT.
This report produced by brightbeam finds that in San Francisco there is a 58 point gap between white and black students when comparing students that are proficient in math. This trend is reflected in many different parts of the United States as well, highlighting the lack of equity in standardized testing. The Supreme Court upheld affirmative action 2014 Grutter v. Bollinger case about the admissions to the Michigan Law School. This ruling allowed the use of racial preference to promote racial diversity in colleges. If affirmative action is applied to the college admissions process already, then why is it not being used to reduce the point gap between the students of different races in San Francisco?
While this debate has been going on for a while, the coronavirus pandemic proved that colleges can admit students without requiring the SAT. Whether is it right or wrong to exclude these tests from the admissions process is a question that should be tackled by both administrators and the students themselves.
