California is reconsidering the role of tests like the SAT and ACT in its college admissions. Around 1,000 other colleges have already gone test-optional according to fairtest.org, but a shift for California would be big news, considering the size of the state university systems, which combined enrolled over 700,000 students for fall 2018.
I’m trying to get up to speed on this somewhat controversial issue. My research in testing focuses mainly on development and validation at the item level, and I’m less familiar with validity research on admissions policies and the broader consequences of test use in this area.
This week, I’ve gone through the following documents, all available online.
- A recent LA Times report, Drop the SAT and ACT as a Requirement for Admission, Top UC Officials Say
- A 2017 article by Saul Geiser summarizing the issue, Norm-referenced tests and race-blind admissions
- A 2019 analysis of UC and CSU data by Michal Kurlaender and Kramer Cohen, Predicting College Success: How Do Different High School Assessments Measure Up?
- A statement on Misconceptions about Group Differences in Average Test Scores from the National Council on Measurement in Education in response to the UC news
- A summary of Validity Studies by the College Board, who owns the SAT
These documents seem to capture the gist of the debate, which centers on a few key issues. I’ll summarize here and then dig deeper in future posts.
Those in favor of norm-referenced admissions tests argue that the tests contribute to predicting undergraduate performance above and beyond other admissions variables like high school GPA and criterion-referenced tests, and they do so in a standardized way, with proctored administration, and using metrics that are independent of program or state.
Those in favor of dropping admissions tests, or making them optional, argue that the tests are more reflective of group differences than are other admissions variables. The costs, in terms of potential for bias, outweigh the benefits, in terms of incremental increases in predictive power.
In the end, the main question is, do we need a standardized measure of general content in the admissions process?
If so, what other options meet this need, and are available on an international scale, but don’t suffer from the same limitations as the SAT and ACT? Alternatively, is there room for improvement in current norm-referenced tests?
If not, how do we address limitations in the remaining admissions metrics, some of which may also be susceptible to misuse?