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Need For SAT, ACT Questioned

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The New York Times

Published: September 29, 2008

SEATTLE - For the 5,500 college admissions officials and high school guidance counselors who gathered here over the weekend, the main event was William R. Fitzsimmons' first public presentation of the findings of the Study of the Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admission.

Fitzsimmons, the dean of admissions at Harvard, led a commission of college admissions officials who after a year of work drafted the study, which challenges colleges and universities to examine their use of the SAT and ACT and to consider whether they are using the tests properly or can make the tests optional for admissions.

At the annual conference here of the National Association of College Admission Counseling, Fitzsimmons and other members of the commission tried to ease the fears of the ardent supporters of the standardized admissions tests. He took pains to say that the SAT had many advantages.

But he also affirmed what many of those present had been saying for years: that the SAT and other standardized admissions tests are "incredibly imprecise" when it comes to measuring academic ability and how well students will perform in college. Colleges and universities need to do much more research into how well the tests predict success at their institutions.

Test prep works, Fitzsimmons said, but he noted that there was a difference between test prep that consists of studying on your own and $400-an-hour one-on-one tutoring that starts in the seventh grade.

But an audience member asked Fitzsimmons and the other college admissions officials on stage if any of them had changed their minds about the SAT, whether to go test-optional or not, as a result of their participation in the study.

One by one, the admissions officers gave variations of the same answer: We're concerned about the inequities and possible misuses of the test. We're going to keep studying it and talking about it, but the tests are useful for us, and we're not going test-optional.

Only Jeff Rickey, the dean of admissions at Earlham College in Indiana gave an answer that implied that change might be possible in his office. "Stay tuned," he told the audience. "A year from now we'll be able to inform you as to whether we're going test-optional or not."

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