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SAT scores still wield a mighty force in our culture and in the psyches of teenagers, even though 760 American colleges and universities, including my own, have made standardized testing an optional part of the admissions process. After admitting three classes of students under a testing-optional policy adopted in April 2005, I was startled this spring when I found it difficult to convince my own daughter, who was disappointed in her SAT scores, that her future is not dictated by the results of a test. She nodded when I, as a college-admissions officer, promised her that there are other, more-accurate measures of ability and success, and that a test score can never convey what she has experienced, learned, and accomplished. But I could see that all she was thinking about was that number.
I was able to assure my daughter without reservation, as an increasing number of institutions consider eliminating their testing requirements. While I admit it's a scary prospect -- as is any major policy change -- the benefits far outweigh the challenges and risks for all parties involved.
For any college contemplating the change to test-optional, the report just issued by a commission convened by the National Association for College Admission Counseling is required reading. The commission spent a year examining the impact of standardized testing on the college-admissions process, and its recommendations provide further weight to test-optional policies. The commission advises colleges to scrutinize how they actually use test scores, and it urges institutions to place greater emphasis on students' high-school curricula and achievements. Our experience at the College of Holy Cross reaffirms those conclusions.
Three years ago, after the new writing portion of the SAT was unveiled, my college announced that it would make SAT and ACT scores an optional part of prospective students' applications. It was a carefully considered decision, made after several years of discussion and debate over the role that test scores played in our admissions process. Because Holy Cross had long placed more weight on a student's academic record, high-school course of study, and qualitative evaluations than on standardized-test scores, the move was more a public announcement of an existing process than a dramatic shift in how we made our admissions decisions.
Like other institutions making similar...