While the President of the University of California, Richard Atkinson recently announced his proposal to end the use of ACTs and SATs as a requirement for admission, Dartmouth College does not plan to follow suit anytime soon.
"I don't see Dartmouth moving away from the SAT in the short run," Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg said. He does believe that there will definitely be some changes made nationwide if the University of California decides to no longer use the SATs for admission.
Furstenberg emphasized a critical issue resulting from Atkinson's proposal: "How is the College Board going to respond? If nationwide there is less use of the SAT, I think the College Board is going to have to do some evaluation of how their product is being received," Furstenberg said.
At the same time, the College finds that the SATs are a necessary way to assess the applicant pool. Furstenberg commented, "The less information you have the harder it is to make the decision."
Dartmouth uses the SAT along with the high school transcript, four different recommendations and a couple of essays to select prospective students.
One reason that the College finds it necessary to look at SAT scores is because recently there has been an "inflation in high school grades, which makes the transcript a little less useful then it used to be," Furstenberg said.
"At a place like Dartmouth, or any other Ivy League institution, the applicant pool is so strong that we need every piece of information that we can get. Applicants are sending transcripts with almost all straight As," Furstenberg added.
Describing reasons for Atkinson's proposal, Furstenberg said, "I think it's because they deal with a much more diverse population than the colleges in the east. It's also more of a political move I think, given all the talk of affirmative action in California."
Atkinson looks upon the SATs unfavorably because they are "not compatible with the American view on how merit should be defined and opportunities distributed."
Under the proposal, the University of California would not require applicants to submit scores from the SAT I, but would continue to require a selection of SAT II subject tests.
Some smaller East Coast schools have already opted to make standardized test scores optional for admission.
The submission of SAT and ACT scores at Bowdoin College has been optional since 1969 in order to make clear that the college "looks carefully at a broad range of information to assess an applicant's potential for academic success in college" according to the Bowdoin website.
Of admitted students, 15 percent decided not to submit standardized test results. Although not required for admission, the test results are required after admission to be used for academic counseling and placement.
In the mid 1980s, Bates College in Lewiston, Maine voted to make SATs optional because of "inequities and inaccuracies in the system" according to the Bates College website.
Furthermore, there are three main reasons that schools usually decide not to require standardized test scores. First, there is an ethical issue raised in conjunction with standardized tests. Some colleges, particularly Bates, believe that the tests put students from multicultural backgrounds, rural areas and financially depressed homes at a disadvantage, which clashes with the college's educational mission.
Secondly, some prospective students assume that the tests are a major part of the application and select colleges based on median test scores instead of the merit or the college and its programs.
Finally, Bates College outlined that although standardized tests can offer an idea of academic potential, test scores are not always an accurate indicator of college and academic success. Currently, the Faculty at Bates feels that test-preparation courses, which are becoming an increasingly common part of high-school curricula, misdirect the energies of both high-school teachers and students.
Atkinson from the University of California was influenced by a visit to an elementary school where 12-year-olds were concentrating on skills used specifically on the SAT.
"The time involved was not aimed at developing the students' reading and writing abilities but rather their test-taking skills," Dr. Atkinson wrote to The New York Times. "I concluded what many others have concluded -- that America's overemphasis on the SAT is compromising our educational system."
Furstenberg agrees, "It's definitely a phenomenon." But, at the College "we do find the SATs to be a useful measure," he said. The SATs offer additional information about applicants.
In order to compensate for the tests' shortcomings, "We take the [students'] background into account when we look at the scores," Furstenberg said.
In his opinion, the College uses the SATs "responsibly." Furstenberg said, "We don't base decisions on the test or use cutoffs."
Additionally, he generally sees the SATs as a good thing for colleges and students. "All colleges are able to find talented students through the tests with the PSAT so sometimes it opens opportunities for people that might not have considered certain schools," Furstenberg said.
If the University of California system decides to not use SAT scores, it will affect about 27,000 undergraduate first year students in the system each year, not to mention the nationwide trend it could start.
