As college applications for juniors loom, students are facing the decision of whether they will submit their SAT or ACT scores. After COVID-19 forced colleges to make submitting standardized test scores optional, some are reintroducing the requirement for the 2024-25 admissions cycle.
Colleges became test optional during the pandemic because students were unable to get to testing locations, but Dartmouth College and Yale University recently announced the return of requiring scores. They believe standardized tests are reliable in measuring student success. Standardized tests should stay optional to benefit students’ mental health and reduce inequality in college admissions.
The assessments only capture a student’s academic ability on the test day, failing to represent who they really are. The University of Chicago News found high school GPAs, which represent four years of academic achievement, are five times more likely to predict a student’s success in college compared to ACT scores.
Standardized test scores diminish a student’s potential by raising standards to an impossible and unreachable goal. While preparing to take the tests, students’ stress levels increase daily. Nancy Hamilton, a psychology professor at the University of Kansas, said stress causes students to lose sleep and become preoccupied with the “life-changing” consequences of taking the test.
Since Dartmouth and Yale are now requiring test scores, other colleges are assumed to follow. College admission specialists at The New York Times believe all colleges will begin requiring scores in the next five years.
Mandating scores will decrease diversity throughout universities. Modest-income Black and Hispanic students’ scores tend to be lower than those for upper-income white students, according to The New York Times.
After the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in June 2023, colleges will not be able to use race as a factor in the admission process. With universities returning to testing requirements, diversity will decrease because of average scores shown in the past years.
The wealth a student is born into can drastically impact their test scores. Standardized testing is a process not all students can afford: in a study by The New York Times, people in upper-class neighborhoods and receiving a private education pay more money for a tutor and take the test numerous times, helping their children get better scores. According to Princeton Review, taking a test alone costs around $60, a price which continues to rise every year. Factor in the $30-60 per hour for a tutor, and standardized testing is clearly biased against those with less money to spend.
Taking the SAT or ACT many times allows a student to “superscore.” This reports the best scores in each subject from all of their past attempts. If a student is financially able to superscore, they may continue to take the ACT until they are content with their score.
According to neaToday, standardized tests are rooted in replicating racial and economic inequality and originally were biased to limit diversity through universities. Many of the scientists responsible for creating the SAT believed in “maintaining white purity.”
If the system of standardized testing is unfair, colleges should stop considering these scores altogether. Standardized testing moves the country backward, not forward.