Standardized testing is a big deal in our local high school district. All high school juniors are expected to take a college-entrance standardized test - for all of my kids, it has been the ACT. In addition, the students are encouraged to take the test as sophomores so that when they take it "for real" as juniors, they're familiar with the format, and have a year to address any standardized-test weaknesses. Standardized testing is a major pillar of the school district's emphasis on college preparation.
But that emphasis on standardized testing may now be running counter to an emerging trend: some colleges are no longer requiring that students include test results in their applications. And now the University of Chicago has climbed on that bandwagon. Here is Scott Jaschik from Inside Higher Ed:
Hundreds of colleges -- including elite liberal arts colleges -- have stopped requiring the SAT or ACT. But Chicago's move is the first by one of the very top research universities in the country. And the move is striking coming from an institution, known for its academic rigor, that has had no difficulty attracting top applicants.
The university's new policy is part of a broader set of policy reforms, collectively known as UChicago Empower, designed to ensure that all applicants have a fair shot at gaining admission:
The university also announced an expansion of financial aid (for which the university was already on the generous side) and other new policies designed to attract more low-income and first-generation students.
Going forward the university will provide:
- Full tuition scholarships for students whose families earn less than $125,000.
- Scholarships of $20,000 over four years, and a guaranteed paid summer internship, for all first-generation students.
In addition, the university announced a new program in which it will invite students to submit a two-minute video introduction of themselves. And the university will allow self-submission of transcripts to minimize the need for students to pay fees.
- Special new scholarships for veterans and the children of police officers, firefighters and veterans.
Colleges typically have claimed that test scores were just one of a number of criteria used in making admissions decisions, and that best practice will continue without test scores:
Molly O'Connor, a senior consultant with EAB’s Enrollment Management Forum, said that test-optional admissions have the most success when they are part of broad admissions strategies and not a standalone policy.
I suppose NewGathering readers already know that standardized test-based admissions have been controversial for many years because performance on the exams exhibits racial and income disparities. Whites and Asians tend to do relatively well as a whole on the exams, while African Americans and Hispanics tend to do less well as a whole.
test scores are receiving increasing scrutiny from advocates for black and Latino students, who say those students are excluded by the use of test scores.
These racial disparities can cut both ways:
In addition, some advocates for Asian-American applicants use these [test-score] data to say that elite colleges should be admitting many more Asian-American applicants than they are now. This issue is about to receive attention in a lawsuit against Harvard University, joined by the U.S. Justice Department, alleging discrimination against Asian-American applicants.
I don't doubt that University of Chicago admissions officials are sincere in their desire to give lower-income and racially excluded applicants a fair shot at gaining admission. Eliminating the standardized-test-score admissions requirement may also lower the temperature on these racial controversies.
In my own case, I happen to have been a better test-taker than a student. I'm not a natural student: I'm lazy, I have a hard time motivating myself to do things that don't interest or stimulate me, and I find scholastic pursuits to be quite a slog. But for some reason, I almost always rose to the occasion when it came to standardized tests. In my high school graduating class, I was in the top 10% (but not the top 9%), but my standardized test scores put me in a higher percentile - I don't remember which one, but it was in the top 2 or 3% nationally. But as things transpired, my undergraduate grades ended up not much better than my high school grades. So I would have to say that my high school grades were a truer measure of my college aptitude and potential than the standardized test scores were.
Also, making an admissions video wouldn't have been much of an advantage for me; I'm not a visual person, and have never had much interest in videography and photography. But I suppose that supportive high schools will incorporate these new requirements into their college-preparatory programs.
Also, making an admissions video wouldn't have been much of an advantage for me; I'm not a visual person, and have never had much interest in videography and photography. But I suppose that supportive high schools will incorporate these new requirements into their college-preparatory programs.
Long ago a wise teacher told me there is only one valid reason to give a test: To find out what the student doesn't know and therefore, needs to learn, so she can be taught it.
ReplyDeleteThat would not require a whole industry. Yet we have a whole industry that tests what students know so they can advance a grade or get into college. The problem is, we are never quite sure what has just been tested after the results are in.
If the U of Chicago were to throw out the entire first class it selected through its usual winnowing process, and then throw out the best of what's left and enroll the third collection of names it comes up with, it would have a class that doesn't have a dime's worth of difference from the two it threw out. Such is the quality of its applications.
And yet, from this situation, we have had one lawsuit after another from people trying to prove they were entitled from their test scores to be accepted, but were not. And the courts encourage this idiocy -- as do state legislatures, which have no metric to measure themselves but think everything else should be tested for "accountability." Amen.
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ReplyDeleteI assume the point of a standardized test is to try to measure students on an equal footing, as there is a perception that education quality is highly variable from one school or district to the next.
ReplyDeleteMy personal experience is that the things that make or break a college student are usually factors other than academic preparation. Is she mature, self-sufficient, self-disciplined? Does he make wise decisions and manage time well? Is she socially adept? Does he suffer from depression or anxiety? Is there a substance abuse problem? Maybe there are tests that can measure these things, but I don't think they are the ACT or the SAT.
The tests may put students on an equal footing, but you don't need equal footing if you are, say, hang gliding. As far as I know, nobody has correlated the tests to anything beyond how you will probably do in your freshman year. As your experience (which is to be trusted) shows, it takes a lot more than a test score to pass calculus.
DeleteI agree that college success has much more to do with temperament than test scores. A two-page writing sample will also tell you more about the applicant's basic readiness for college than a test score.
DeleteIn my view, 18-year-olds are really no longer mature enough to deal with college, and they could benefit from some time out working in the real world for a year or two to get out from under their hovering parents.
The helicopter parenting started about 2005. Students with poor grades would tell their parents I was grading them unfairly, and parents would call me to complain about their kids' grades. When I explained that I could not discuss their adult child's grades with them, they would get nasty, telling me they were paying the tuition and I was working for them.
I discussed it with the dean and she said this problem was widespread all over campus. Real sense of entitlement that if you pay the money, the college hands your kid a degree.
High school counselors put a huge amount of pressure on parents and kids to go right into college immediately, and they have nothing to offer kids for whom college isn't really a good option. But high schools use their college enrollment rates as a bragging point with voters, because it makes the school look "smarter."
This needs to change.
I believe I am not a helicopter parent. Consequently, on a fairly frequent basis I am "parent-shamed" by parents who are uber-involved in their children's activities and are much more aware of what is going on than I am.
DeleteMy youngest just returned from a tour of Italy with his school band. My wife and I didn't go, but quite a few parents did. The way the tour was arranged, the parents weren't allowed to have their children stay with them nor transport them around, so the parents were sort of hovering on the periphery the whole time. I don't know if that makes them helicopter parents, or I'm just a lousy parent :-).
FWIW, when I was a teen, I'd have preferred to travel with my friends without looking over my shoulder at my parents.
I'm sympathetic with the college helicopter parents to this extent: if the school makes his/her grant eligibility contingent on my income - which of course it does - and inflates its tuition prices such that parents are expected to greatly subsdize the tuition - which of course we are - then the school has perforce made me a stakeholder. I don't think that gives me a right to yell at the instructor, but I wish it would at least give me the right to see his/her report card at the end of the semester.
DeleteThe educational "contract" is between the prof and your adult child.
DeleteIf you elect to pay the bills, the college will adjust tuition to fit your income. But it has no responsibilities to you.
If you do NOT elect to pay the bills, tuition will be based on the child's income. Likely that means lower tuition. But you can no longer claim him as a deduction.
If you are paying for you child's education, then your stake is in your child. Make tuition contingent on him showing you his report cards.
Don't drag the prof into it.
Jim, about that tour to Italy where the parents couldn't have their son or daughter stay with them or be part of the tour; I can't imagine anything less fun than hovering on the periphery. Mom and Dad should plan their own trip, another time. Probably after the kid gets out of school and there aren't any more tuition bills.
DeleteJust me musing out loud, when did the term "adult child" come into common parlance? Seem pretty much like an oxymoron. I mean, I totally get how our sons or daughters are always going to be our children in our hearts. But I would have been mortally offended as a college student to hear my parents refer to me as a child. Not that the shoe wouldn't have fit, I was pretty immature at that age.
DeleteYeah, it's an oxymoron. What else you gonna call 'em?
DeleteAdult embryos?
DeleteThis step by Chicago will bear watching. All highly selective colleges/universities receive far more applications from well qualified students than they can accept. We are a bit away from the game now (the youngest graduated 11 years ago), but when heavily involved with the college process, I learned a few things. I don't think videos are the answer either.
ReplyDeleteI went to a small, Catholic women's college on full scholarship (two - one paid tuition, one paid room and board). It officially joined with the local Jesuits and moved the women to the men's campus the Sept after I graduated (Loyola Marymount University). Not especially competitive as far as admissions rates. My husband is an Ivy grad. Two of our sons went to universities that are consistently rated in "the top five" (they rearrange the order every year, but pretty much the same five at the top each year), and the slightly lazier son - bright like you and his brothers, good tester, but only studied if he liked the course - went to a top 25 university.
The highly competitive schools have been trying for years to get more racial and economic/demographic diversity. I sure wish they had had the tuition break for professional salary but not poor families when my kids were in college. I think Princeton started that trend - the fall after our youngest graduated from college. Timing. They were accepting a lot of kids from families that were too "rich" to qualify under FAFSA rules, but who were unwilling to mortgage their homes and their old age for their kid to go to an Ivy, or MIT or similar. So the kids who were not from poor families, but also not from "rich" families were turning them down even after being accepted at a highly competitive private college.
Affirmative action is going to be destroyed by this administration, so maybe they are looking at new ways to diversify their student bodies- without risking failure for those whose test scores and quality of high school educations indicate they may be at higher risk of dropping out. Kids who might begin feeling overwhelmed by the competition in their class. Fear failing.
The never-graduate rate at the most competitive colleges/universities of many students who do not have the same test scores/grades/quality of high school than the majority of the student body is, unfortunately, far higher than for that majority. Many of these top schools, at least the private, have extra help for less-prepared kids. They have mentors and tutors, and basic courses if the English, writing, or math skills aren't up to the expected standard. Yet too many of the students being helped by these programs still drop out. Some educators are now suggesting that the looser admissions standards for some students does not do them any favors. They would have been better off at a less competitive university or college where they would have felt more comfortable staying the course to graduate.
I don't know the answer.
"Many of these top schools, at least the private, have extra help for less-prepared kids. They have mentors and tutors, and basic courses if the English, writing, or math skills aren't up to the expected standard. Yet too many of the students being helped by these programs still drop out."
DeleteMy supposition is that your observation here dovetails with what Jean and I remarked earlier: their academic performance may be a symptom rather than the root cause of their failing. As Jean put it, they may not have the temperament to succeed. Or they may not be mature enough yet.
Even to ask for academic help presupposes a certain amount of self-awareness and maturity. I don't know if I would have been there as an eighteen year old, either.
Yes. The last two years before I retired I worked in the tutoring/mentoring center (which has, sadly, been closed) of a small private college. I saw a range of students, many of whom just wanted to complain about how college was too hard. But I developed a working relationships with four or five "regulars" who came in every semester. These students were as bright as any of the others, but needed a "live person" (even one as astringent and old as me). As the college moves toward more online courses for undergraduates (which I think is a huge mistake), students are losing the kind of contact with instructors who can offer general advice about education and life, and who can offer personal encouragement that is vital to some kids.
Delete"I sure wish they had had the tuition break for professional salary but not poor families when my kids were in college. I think Princeton started that trend - the fall after our youngest graduated from college."
ReplyDeleteYes. My oldest, who finished high school in 2012, got an email from Princeton basically stating that, if she would apply and get accepted, she could get a free ride. I strongly encouraged her to apply, but for whatever reason, going to an Ivy wasn't in her life script.
My thought is that the endowments of the Ivies and places like Univ. of Chicago must be stupendous. And then there are some state schools here in Illinois - some of the so-called "directional schools" like Eastern Illinois University - that are struggling to keep the doors open and the lights turned on. Chicago State, whose student body is mostly minority, nearly shut its doors for good a couple of years ago because it was out of money. The discrepancies in college financial power and stability are huge.
Funny this subject should come up today. I am retired, as of 10:30 this morning. The young man who took my place had recently graduated from the smallest college in our state system with a degree in chemistry. He took a rather non-traditional path; he is older than your typical college student. He had been out in the work world for several years, and after a layoff had decided to go back to school and get his degree. He chose the smaller school on purpose, because of the lower tuition, less picky entrance requirements, and the possibility of more individual mentoring from the faculty. I don't know if they required an ACT test; once someone has been out of high school for several years I wouldn't think it would tell them much.
ReplyDeleteYou hear that recent college graduates face a stiff job market. However my employer started advertising my position nearly 5 months ago. They had exactly one qualified interviewee prior to this person, and he had turned the job down. I guess this isn't a trendy town in which to live. So it was a win/win. "Tom" was eager to start working; he had gone through school on a shoestring budget, and needed to start earning some money. And I was wondering if I would ever get to retire, or if I would have to try to teach "chemistry 101" to someone who had zero background.
My advice to students would be, don't overlook the smaller, less prestigious schools, sometimes they are a better fit.
Katherine, I was wondering the other day whether you had retired yet - I remember you mentioning a couple of months ago that it was impending. Best of luck to you. I'd feel lost at sea without work.
DeleteJust a word of warning: when my father retired, my mother quickly discovered that meant that he'd be underfoot at home all day. That may have been his retirement plan but it wasn't necessarily hers :-).
Jim, my husband has been semi-retired for several years now. So he'll have to get used to having me around more. I think both of us agree that we each still need some "me time".
DeleteCongratulations, Katherine. Hope you enjoy your retirement. Everyone deserves one.
ReplyDeleteThanks Stanley. Everyone's been asking me if I have plans. My reply is that I plan to enjoy the summer!
DeleteGood plan.
DeleteYes, congrats. All that self-directed time is a little scary, isn't it?
DeleteI've never really had a problem with self directed time. But it does kind of turn into undirected time. So I hope I don't fritter it away. And finances. Money is something else we don't want to fritter away, since there's less of it coming in.
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ReplyDeleteOops. The spamsters have found us. There IS a placs for the death penalty.
ReplyDeleteAny of us could go in and delete, but waiting to see if David Nickol or someone smarter than me wants to get into the wiring and make sure this guy doesn't come back. If that's even possible.
DeleteThey have to block IP addresses, as the trolls change email addresses regularly. I don't know how to do that. Maybe David does, or someone at the host site can tell him how to do it.
DeleteI may be partially to blame. When I post, I have the option of posting it as Public to Google or not. I usually choose not, but I think I accidentally chose Public in this case. I suppose that somehow gave this post a little extra shot of visibility or some such.
DeleteLife is a never-ending series of tests and more tests. Some we pass; some we fail. I hope that I have learned from all of them and wonder what my life would have been like without them.
ReplyDelete