Standardized Tests and College Admission

Standardized tests for college admission. . .they seem to be the bane of the college bound high school student's existence. It has been argued that the tests are biased against non white, low income students. Ironically, the SAT was created decades ago with the intention of measuring students across all high schools, geographies, and backgrounds. It was meant to open the doors of elite institutions such as Yale and Harvard, to those students not among the private school elite.

That being said, the tests no longer seem to be serving this purpose as effectively as they once did. As a former college admission officer, I've found that these tests help to understand a student's abilities in the context of their school. Other methods and information can be used to replace tests as a method for evaluating a student for college admission. Many schools have already formalized this "replacement" of standardized tests with other methods. Some schools require writing samples in place of test scores. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing lists the many colleges that do no require standardized tests such as SATs or ACTs for college admission. Schools added this year include Wake Forest University, one of the more prestigious schools on the list.

While standardized tests are used in many college admission decisions, this list can certainly provide options for those students that are philosophically opposed to testing or those that do not test well, but perform well in other areas of their academic career.