Three more U.S. colleges recently abandoned testing requirements for undergraduate applications, as admissions officials continue to debate the value of standardized test scores in predicting future academic success.
Students who apply for fall 2006 admission to St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y.; Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.; and Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., will no longer be required to submit scores from the SAT or ACT.
According to the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest), these schools join hundreds of other accredited, bachelor-degree-granting institutions that do not use test scores at all, require scores only for scholarship or research purposes, or give more consideration to other criteria.
A 20-year study conducted by Bates College and released last fall found that standardized test scores are not accurate predictors of academic success. Bates studied the effects of its own test-optional policy, which was established in 1984, and found no significant differences in academic performance or graduation rates between those who had submitted test scores and those who had not.
Many selective colleges, such as Bowdoin, Wheaton, Dickinson, Connecticut, and Mt. Holyoke, no longer require standardized tests for admission. Bemidji State University is one of a number of Minnesota schools among the 700-plus schools on FairTest's list. According to Troy Reynolds, an admissions counselor at Bemidji State, test scores are not used to evaluate applicants who graduated in the top half of their class.
“Test scores can be helpful indicators, but they are by no means the be-all, end-all,” he says. “Schools continue to experiment with different ways to prioritize factors such as course load, class rank, and extracurricular activities because they provide a much a fuller picture of the applicant.”
Darwin Hendel, an associate professor in the University of Minnesota's Department of Educational Policy and Administration, believes admissions officials are wise to use several criteria for evaluating prospective students.
“I hope that the debate over the usefulness of standardized tests will only stimulate the development of additional measures that can be used to make admissions decisions,” he says.
