College Board Score Choice-Nothing More Than Marketing Tactic
Stuart Nachbar
January 22, 2009
Last month, The College Board announced that college-bound juniors will be offered the option to submit only their highest scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) to colleges and universities, unless the college(s) of their choice request a complete set of scores.
The College Board announced this policy as an act to relive test-anxiety among SAT test takers; if a student is not confident that their score will be high enough they can hide it from admissions officers eyes. But this policy will also lead students to hide the number of times that they took the test to get the scores they got. The American College Testing Program, which administers the competing test, the ACT, already has a score choice option. The College Board's decision was meant to regain market share, and discourage admissions officers from considering scores from both tests. In the end, it does nothing for students or their families.
Test anxiety, the thought that one's life is on the line during a three-hour exam, is a legitimate concern of parents and students alike. Nearly eight hundred colleges across the country have helped to address that concern by not requiring the SAT for admissions purposes (though they may still use the test scores to place entering freshmen into language arts and math classes).
If a student with good, but not elite, SAT scores is from a well-to-do family, there is a reasonable selection of quality private colleges that do not require the SAT. And that student and their family should keep in mind that five or six shots at the SAT will not guarantee admission into the best of the best schools.
And if I were an admissions director at an Ivy League school or a top liberal arts college, I would be concerned about test anxiety from a different standpoint--as an indication of a student's academic fitness to earn a degree from my school. Every college has in-class examination courses, and opportunities for multiple do-overs or options to hide scores are few. I'm likely to look more favorably at the applicant who got the high score on the very first try; the test didn't faze them.
The problem with the SATs is that students must go backwards to prepare for them. They go for tutoring to re-learn algebra and geometry as well as the language arts rules they learned in the eighth grade, and summarily forgot. So here's a thought: drop the PSAT and administer the SAT to students at the start of their junior year. They take the test only once. Then they take subject area tests as finals in select junior and senior year subjects.
The SAT score would serve as a starting point, an indicator of what the student knew going into their junior year. The subject area tests would provide more detailed information about reading comprehension, writing and mathematical skills (most colleges require Algebra II) post-SAT. And each student takes them only once.
Then the student selects subject areas of their choice and takes them senior year as part of building their admissions portfolio. According to the College Board, there are thirty one examinations in six subject areas: English, arts, history and social sciences, mathematics and computer science, sciences and world languages. Let students pick the subjects they are most likely to continue in college and use those scores to build their case. A student is more likely to prepare enthusiastically for exams in the subjects of interest to them-and prepare on their own instead of seeking tutoring.
High schools have the responsibility for not only helping their college-bound students get into college; they also have the responsibility of encouraging them to develop intellectual interests that might later turn into professional interests. My proposed solution would move them further into that direction. It would also provide some relief from test anxiety, while giving all students a fairer shot at the schools of their choice.
The College Board announced this policy as an act to relive test-anxiety among SAT test takers; if a student is not confident that their score will be high enough they can hide it from admissions officers eyes. But this policy will also lead students to hide the number of times that they took the test to get the scores they got. The American College Testing Program, which administers the competing test, the ACT, already has a score choice option. The College Board's decision was meant to regain market share, and discourage admissions officers from considering scores from both tests. In the end, it does nothing for students or their families.
Test anxiety, the thought that one's life is on the line during a three-hour exam, is a legitimate concern of parents and students alike. Nearly eight hundred colleges across the country have helped to address that concern by not requiring the SAT for admissions purposes (though they may still use the test scores to place entering freshmen into language arts and math classes).
If a student with good, but not elite, SAT scores is from a well-to-do family, there is a reasonable selection of quality private colleges that do not require the SAT. And that student and their family should keep in mind that five or six shots at the SAT will not guarantee admission into the best of the best schools.
And if I were an admissions director at an Ivy League school or a top liberal arts college, I would be concerned about test anxiety from a different standpoint--as an indication of a student's academic fitness to earn a degree from my school. Every college has in-class examination courses, and opportunities for multiple do-overs or options to hide scores are few. I'm likely to look more favorably at the applicant who got the high score on the very first try; the test didn't faze them.
The problem with the SATs is that students must go backwards to prepare for them. They go for tutoring to re-learn algebra and geometry as well as the language arts rules they learned in the eighth grade, and summarily forgot. So here's a thought: drop the PSAT and administer the SAT to students at the start of their junior year. They take the test only once. Then they take subject area tests as finals in select junior and senior year subjects.
The SAT score would serve as a starting point, an indicator of what the student knew going into their junior year. The subject area tests would provide more detailed information about reading comprehension, writing and mathematical skills (most colleges require Algebra II) post-SAT. And each student takes them only once.
Then the student selects subject areas of their choice and takes them senior year as part of building their admissions portfolio. According to the College Board, there are thirty one examinations in six subject areas: English, arts, history and social sciences, mathematics and computer science, sciences and world languages. Let students pick the subjects they are most likely to continue in college and use those scores to build their case. A student is more likely to prepare enthusiastically for exams in the subjects of interest to them-and prepare on their own instead of seeking tutoring.
High schools have the responsibility for not only helping their college-bound students get into college; they also have the responsibility of encouraging them to develop intellectual interests that might later turn into professional interests. My proposed solution would move them further into that direction. It would also provide some relief from test anxiety, while giving all students a fairer shot at the schools of their choice.
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