Students applying to public universities in California are done with the ACT and SAT for good.
It's time for the rest of the country to follow suit.
Trustees at California State University decided this week to remove the standardized tests from its admissions process. CSU, the largest four-year university system in the nation, is following in the footsteps of the University of California system, which made the same decision in 2020 for its 10 campuses.
Studies have repeatedly found that high school grade-point averages are a better predictor of college success than SAT or ACT scores. Students from higher socioeconomic backgrounds who have access to pricey test prep and tutors tend to score higher on standardized tests, unsurprisingly.
Eliminating these high-stakes, high-stress tests will help level a playing field that already heavily favors the wealthiest families. The early indicators from California's experiment have found a positive impact on student diversity without lowering student achievement.
There's going to be plenty of additional data for universities to track from the past two years. During the pandemic, nearly 80% of four-year U.S. colleges and universities made submitting standardized test scores optional for applicants.
Paul Tough, author of "The Inequality Machine: How College Divides Us," said this is one of the few positive educational trends to come out of the pandemic. He cites two main reasons: One, it removes a layer of stress for the kids applying to super-selective colleges; two, there is good evidence to suggest that the SAT and ACT are the most unfair qualifiers -- in an already-unfair process -- because of how income-dependent the results are.
"High school grades are less correlated with family income," he said. Colleges can consider an applicant's grades, along with the rigor of courses and the rest of the application elements, as a way to evaluate a student's potential without automatically eliminating those who test below a certain threshold. While aspects of college admissions will continue to favor those who have unearned advantages -- such as extra consideration for legacy candidates or preferential treatment for athletes in expensive, elite sports -- reforms are still possible.
"It is possible to design a system more fair to low-income kids," Tough said. Given that the mission of higher education is to increase social mobility, this should be a priority.
So far, MIT is the highest-profile institution to announce it will bring back standardized testing as part of its admissions process. In contrast, two-thirds of American universities and colleges, including every Ivy League institution, plan to remain test-optional for at least another year. Not all of them also forgo test scores for scholarships, but a significant number do.
Still, this patchwork approach defeats the larger purpose. Rather than keeping the tests optional, colleges should use the available data and drop them altogether. There are now 86 campuses that are test-blind, meaning they won't consider test scores even if students chose to submit them.
When we look at who benefits most from standardized tests, there are clear winners: the College Board, which administers the SATs, AP exams and PSATs; and ACT Inc., which runs the ACTs. The College Board, which is registered as a nonprofit, made $1.2 billion in revenue in 2020. In an essay for Forbes, journalist Susan Paterno noted the secrecy around the College Board's finances.
"Investments in hedge funds and partnerships with anonymous investors quintupled to $675 million over four years. About $162 million is in tax havens in the Caribbean and an unknown amount sits in secret accounts on the tropical island of Mauritius," Paterno wrote. The companies also benefit from multiple state contracts requiring high schoolers to take standardized exams in school -- at taxpayer expense.
The College Board and ACT Inc. insist their tests are useful predictors of students' readiness for college.
If the vast majority of colleges and universities have been able to select successful applicants for the past two years without the tests, how much value do these tests really add?
Don't let the billions in revenue at stake influence the answer.