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One college admissions officer at a large public university described how test-optional admissions had spurred more disagreements in his office. A third reader on an application was often called in to break a tie when one staffer said ‘yes’ and another said ‘no.’ Without SAT and ACT scores, he explained, the job of admitting students had become more subjective and more time-consuming. “I feel like everyone who reviews applications has their own perspective or opinion,” he said.

This sobering anecdote comes from a research project led by Kelly Slay, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, who has been conducting in-depth interviews with admissions officers in 2022 to understand how the elimination of SAT and ACT testing requirements has been playing out inside colleges and universities. According to Slay, admissions officers often described a “chaotic” and “stressful” process where they lacked clear guidance on how to select students without test scores. Admissions officers at selective colleges were also “overwhelmed” by the volume of applicants that test-optional policies had unleashed.

“One of our key findings were the tensions that were emerging around these test optional policies,” said Slay. “There’s a struggle on how to implement them.”

Slay’s work gives us a rare, unvarnished glimpse inside college admissions offices. It’s especially significant now because a college admissions case is currently before the Supreme Court that could strike down affirmative action, a practice that gives preferences to groups that have been discriminated against. As colleges experiment with alternative solutions, these interviews help shed light on why test-optional policies haven’t been helpful for increasing diversity on college campuses. 

Earlier quantitative studies found that the test-optional movement, which has spread to over 1,700 colleges, failed to substantially raise the share of low-income students or students of color. For example, one study published in 2021 found that the share of Black, Latino and Native American students increased by only 1 percentage point at about 100 colleges and universities that adopted the policy between 2005-06 and 2015-16. A separate study of a group of selective liberal arts colleges that adopted test-optional policies before 2011 didn’t find any didn’t find any diversity improvements on those campuses.

Before the pandemic, the move to test-optional admissions was already gathering steam as concerns mounted over the fact that wealthier students could hire tutors, take the tests multiple times and post higher scores. Other critics said that the paperwork to waive testing fees was a barrier for many low-income students. Then, during the pandemic, it became nearly impossible for students to sit for exams and the vast majority of colleges eliminated testing requirements. Some have since restored them, but many haven’t.

Slay’s research is still ongoing, and she presented her preliminary findings at the 2022 annual conference of the Association For Education Finance & Policy. When I interviewed her in October 2022, she and her research team had interviewed 22 admissions officers from 16 colleges and universities. All were four-year institutions, but they ranged from public to private, large to small, and religious to nonreligious. Four of the colleges had dropped testing requirements in the years before the pandemic with the remaining 12 doing so during the pandemic. 

It’s not surprising that colleges that went test-optional during the pandemic were suddenly scrambling to decide how to review applications without standardized tests. But the researchers learned that even colleges who had years of experience with test-optional admissions were still working out the details of how to implement it.

Admissions officers panic that their colleges were replacing standardized tests with metrics that were even more biased toward wealthier and white students, such as letters of recommendation and expensive extracurricular activities. One college purchased a data service that ranked high schools and factored those high school rankings into each application. Students from underserved high schools received a lower ranking, an admissions officer explained. It wasn’t a fair process. 

Many admissions officers said that they were struggling with how to select candidates fairly and didn’t know how to weigh an application with test scores against one without. “I think the students that do have the strong test scores still do have that advantage, especially when you have a student that has strong test scores versus a student who doesn’t have test scores and everything else on the academics is more or less the same,” an admissions officer told Slay.

“It’s really hard to ignore test scores if that’s the way you were trained to review applications and think about merit,” said Slay. “If the standardized test is there in the file, it might still bias you in ways that you’re not aware of. It’s an anchoring bias.”

Admissions officers also described how they struggled to answer a frequent, but basic question: are you really test optional? Students wanted to know if they would have an advantage if they did submit a test score. Slay said admissions officers wished they had better guidance on how to answer this question. Since college entrance exam scores could also be used for certain scholarships and determining course placements once admitted, it was difficult for admissions officers to say that the test wasn’t still important.

Larger workloads were a common complaint. College admissions officers said they were spending more time on each application in an effort to be diligent. Plus, the volume of applications had increased “a lot” at selective schools, Slay said. Meanwhile, many offices lost staff during COVID. Some employees resigned amid the strong job market. Budget cuts at some schools led to layoffs and furloughs. Slay said that some admissions offices were operating with a “skeletal” staff. 

The stress and pressure of being short-staffed and confused could affect anyone’s decision making. The conditions were ripe for amplifying implicit biases – exactly the opposite of the intent of the test-optional policy.

Slay is hearing from colleges that test-optional policies have increased the diversity of the applicant pool, but it’s not translating into a more diverse student body.

“One of the things we concluded is that test optional does not mean an increase in diversity – racial diversity or socio-economic diversity,” said Slay. “If we haven’t figured out how to review students who come from diverse backgrounds who come from schools where they may not have the same access to AP or IB courses, then that could mean that these students still aren’t going to be admitted.”

This story about test optional admissions was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

© iStock/iStock (iStock)

The number of high school students taking college admissions tests has rebounded modestly since the massive disruptions early in the coronavirus pandemic, according to ACT and SAT data for the class of 2022.

But participation in both major standardized tests is down significantly from peak levels reached a few years ago. Admissions testing requirements recently have been suspended or eliminated at many colleges. Test scores are down, but changes in test-taking patterns make comparisons difficult.

The ACT reported this week that more than 1.3 million students from this year’s class took the test, up 4 percent from the previous class. But the total tested was 35 percent lower than the nearly 2.1 million who took the ACT in the class of 2016.

On Sept. 28, the College Board reported that more than 1.7 million students in the class of 2022 took the SAT. That was up 15 percent compared with the previous class but still down 21 percent compared with the record 2.2 million who took it in the class of 2019.

There is also major flux in the way students are taking the tests. A greater share these days participate free — at state or district expense — during a school day instead of paying to take one of the tests on a Saturday. Typically, school-day testing reaches a broader range of students, including more from lower-income families.

In addition, a growing number of selective colleges and universities have dropped admissions test requirements, and some, such as the University of California system, now omit consideration of tests entirely from admissions. UC’s test-blind policy plays a major role in the most populous state.

These variables have scrambled the test-taking pool substantially — which in turn affects average scores.

The ACT reported that the average national score for the class of 2022 was 19.8, down from 20.3 the year before and the lowest mark in more than 30 years. The multiple-choice exam covers English, math, reading and science and takes nearly three hours. The maximum score is 36.

“This is the fifth consecutive year of declines in average scores, a worrisome trend that began long before the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has persisted,” Janet Godwin, chief executive of ACT, said in a statement.

But in a footnote to its charts, ACT acknowledged complications in interpreting the data: “In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, ACT cautions users from making comparisons about this graduating class to previous cohorts or inferring the magnitude of the impact of COVID-related school disruptions on student learning from these data.”

The average SAT score also declined for this year’s class, to 1050, out of a maximum 1600. The average for the previous class was 1060. The SAT takes three hours and covers two sections, math and evidence-based reading and writing. Most questions are in a multiple-choice format.

Major changes are coming to the SAT as it is scheduled to move to a shorter, digital format, ditching the paper-and-pencil version at U.S. sites by spring 2024.

New lawsuits are demanding that the University of California system eliminate the requirement that students take the SAT or ACT to be considered for admission. The lawsuits, filed on behalf of the Compton Unified School District, four students and six community organizations claim that the tests are biased and don’t predict a student’s potential success. There is ample research to support their case against the tests.

Those who support testing suggest it’s the only way to objectively compare students from different high schools. For example, one student may receive all As at a less challenging high school, and another gets all Bs at a much more challenging high school. The admissions committees within the UC system which receive over 200,000 applications per year would have difficulty researching each applicant’s high school to determine how to fairly compare these two students. The SAT and ACT theoretically provide an objective way to compare students from different high schools.

Racial And Economic Bias

However, the lawsuit argues that using the tests violates the state’s anti-discrimination statute because it disadvantages children of color, children from low-income families and children with disabilities. Research seems to support this notion.

With regard to race, in 2018, combined SAT scores for Asian and White students averaged over 1100, while all other groups averaged below 1000. With regard to income, a 2015 analysis found that students with family income less than $20,000 scored lowest on the test, and those with family income above $200,000 scored highest. And we’re not talking about just a couple of points. The average reading score for those students whose family income is below $20,000 is 433, but the average for those with income of above $200,000 is 570. Clearly, there is disadvantage.

The disadvantage is typically attributed to test preparation. There is substantial evidence that test prep can raise test scores, and even the College Board who administers the SAT test admits there are benefits associated with test prep. But high quality test prep can be expensive, and many can’t afford the fees associated with these tutoring classes. Beyond test preparation, high income students often have access to educational opportunities not available to low income students.

Some portion of the differences in test scores may also be attributed to stereotype threat. Stereotypes, like those that suggest certain racial groups are good at math and others are not, raise self-doubts and increase anxiety during high-pressure exams and result in worse scores for those who are negatively stereotyped (and better scores for those with positive stereotypes). Research has shown that reminding students of their racial group before taking a test can impact their score.

Perhaps the most egregious example of the extremes that high-income parents are willing to go to in order to obtain high SAT scores for their kids was revealed in last year’s college cheating scandal. Parents were accused of bribing administrators into letting them alter students’ test scores by either letting someone take the test for them, or by correcting the students answers after they finished the exam.

Gender Bias

Although the UC lawsuit focuses on racial and economic bias, there have long been questions raised regarding gender bias and these standardized tests. Despite the fact that girls consistently perform better than boys in high school math classes, girls underperform boys in the math sections of these tests. For example, for SAT tests taken by the class of 2019, girls averaged 519 and boys averaged 537. While not as large as the racial and economic gaps, it’s still disconcerting.

The reason for the gender discrepancy has been blamed on several factors. Since women are negatively stereotyped to underperform in mathematics relative to their male peers, stereotype threat likely plays a role. There is even some evidence that passages in the test may remind test-takers of these negative stereotypes. Reminding the stereotyped group of the stereotypes can increase their anxiety making their test scores worse.

Other explanations include test length, with one study finding evidence that a longer test would help reduce the gender gap. Enhanced spatial abilities in boys and men may also provide boys a time advantage on the test. And still others have suggested that a positive attitude regarding competition favors male students taking the test.

Test Optional Colleges And Universities

To reduce the bias from testing, over 1,000 colleges and universities are now test optional. That is, students can choose whether or not they wish to include test scores in their application. (University of California is not test optional). One study examined the college success of those students who submitted scores and those who did not. If the schools’ admissions committees make better admissions decisions when they have test scores, then those students who submitted test scores should perform better in college than those who did not submit scores.

Statistical analyses revealed that there were no significant differences in college cumulative GPA and graduation rates between submitters (those that submitted SAT scores) and non-submitters. However, the two groups have significantly large differences in their test scores, a whopping 113 points. These results indicate that admissions officers can successfully predict who will succeed in college even without the use of the test.

With regard to the UC case, even the chancellors of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and the University of California’s Provost have come out in favor of dropping the SAT and ACT as an admission requirement, due to the fact that tests were strongly influenced by family income, race and parents’ education level.

If the UC’s are forced to drop the SAT requirement, then many predict other colleges and universities will follow suit. It seems time that admissions departments found a system for evaluating students that is more inclusive.

STAMFORD — New data show that there has been a consistent drop off in student test performance from pre-COVID-19 numbers and a widening gulf between white students and students of color and between high-needs and other students.

Scores for the Smarter Balanced Assessment, SAT and Next Generation Science Standards tests discussed during a virtual presentation on state test results of Stamford Public Schools students showed lower scores across the board for the district compared with the 2018-19 school year, the last one not affected by the worldwide pandemic.

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - For the fifth year in a row, Georgia public-school students outperformed their counterparts in the nation’s public schools on the SAT, state education officials said Wednesday.

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Local school districts are pleased with their results, too.

Richmond County

In Richmond County, Class of 2022 test takers earned higher SAT mean scores than pre-pandemic test takers continuing the trend of overall growth in SAT performance. Also, the number of SAT test takers increased compared to 2021.

Several Richmond County Schools reported notable test results:

• A.R. Johnson and Davidson Fine Arts School students scored above the state and national average in evidence-based reading and SAT math.
• Davidson Fine Arts School students scored in the top 5% of the state at 16th of 393 schools.
• A.R. Johnson and Richmond Career Technical Magnet School students overall scores increase for 2021 and 2022.
• Glenn Hills High School test takers saw gains in SAT combined scores and in SAT evidence-based reading for 2022.
• The Academy of Richmond County had record test scores in 2021. Test takers from the Class of 2022 outperformed pre-pandemic scores reported in 2020.

“Congratulations to the Richmond County School System Class of 2022 for achievement growth over 2020 pre-pandemic SAT test takers,” said Dr. Kenneth Bradshaw, superintendent of schools.

Columbia County

The Columbia County School District’s SAT scores for 2022 continue to beat state and national averages, district officials said.

Columbia County students scored 70 points above the national average and 46 points above the state average, with an average score of 1,098, with 178 more students participating than in 2021.

Here’s a look at the figures by school:

© Provided by Augusta-Aiken WRDW-TV Columbia County SAT statistics for the Class of 2022

“We congratulate the hard-working students and staff who are behind these outstanding scores,” said Dr. Steve Flynt, superintendent. “We are looking forward to continuing to evaluate these scores and identify areas of improvement.”

Across Georgia

Georgia public-school students recorded a mean score of 1,052, which is 24 points higher than the national average of 1,028 for public-school students.

Georgia’s public-school Class of 2022 recorded a mean score of 536 on the evidence-based reading and writing portion of the assessment, and a mean score of 516 on the math portion. That’s compared to averages of 521 and 507, respectively, for students in the nation’s public schools.

Georgia students’ 2022 mean score decreased compared to 2021, when the mean score was 1077, but is still higher than 2020′s mean score of 1043 and 2019′s mean score of 1048. Georgia public-school students’ lead over the national average has also grown during that time, from a nine-point gap in 2019 to a 24-point gap today.

Additionally, participation increased sharply compared to 2021, when the impacts of the pandemic – including the temporary waiver of SAT/ACT score requirements for University System of Georgia admissions, and the cancellation of some test registrations and closure of some test centers in 2020 – caused fewer students in the graduating class to take the SAT.

Fifty-one percent of Georgia’s class of 2022 took the SAT at some point during high school, compared to 38 percent of the class of 2021.

Oct. 4—The Muscogee County School District for the fourth straight year has outperformed the Georgia and United States averages on the SAT college entrance exam.