Just about every Dartmouth student has heard the criticisms of the SAT: that the aptitude test favors those who can afford expensive preparation; that minorities are unfairly disadvantaged; that it is an inaccurate predictor of college performance.
But another widely used test in the college admissions process has escaped public scrutiny -- the American College Test, or ACT.
A roughly equal number of students take the ACT and SAT each year. And like its more widely criticized counterpart, the ACT is a multiple choice test that claims to predict student performance.
The ACT was designed in 1959 as an alternative to the College Board's aptitude test created 33 years earlier, triggering a behind-the-scenes competition between the makers of the two tests that has raged ever since.
While the SAT captured the markets on the country's two coasts, the ACT, based in Iowa, developed a niche in the Midwest region. They differ in that the ACT is more curriculum-based, consisting of math, reading and science sections.
While spokespeople for both the SAT and ACT say neither test is more biased than the other, critics of standardized testing say the ACT is no less flawed than its more high-profile counterpart and deserves just as much scrutiny.
Bob Schaeffer, director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, an organization that calls for the elimination of standardized testing requirements for college admissions, said the ACT has avoided controversy by intentionally keeping a lower profile.
"In part, the folks who make the ACT have had kind of a quiet, Midwestern style, while the SAT has invested millions of dollars in test-taker fees and in self-promotion," Schaeffer said.
Contributing to the SAT's comparatively higher profile, Schaeffer said, is its use on either coast, home to the country's most prominent colleges and universities.
Schaeffer said the ACT has the same problems as the SAT. "They both assume that capacity to do college work can be done by filling in bubbles for three hours one Saturday morning," he said.
Both the ACT and the SAT say their tests fairly measure student ability.
"We take great pains to make sure our test is not biased to any gender, ethnic or racial group," said spokesman Ed Colby.
Janice Gams, College Board associate director for public affairs, said: "In terms of the SAT, it's a test that does what it's supposed to do -- which is to determine how well students are supposed to do in college. Some students are not as well prepared for college and they don't do as well and others are well prepared as they do well."
A number of colleges have so far eliminated the SAT as an admission requirement, the University of California being the largest and most recent example. But some of these schools have continued to request the ACT.
One such school is Connecticut College in New London, Conn. Although Connecticut College does not require the SAT, it requires either the ACT or three SAT II subject tests.
"It is our belief that because the SAT II and ACT are subject based, they're better indicators of the student's ability to succeed in a college environment and more representative of what the students have actually learned," said Associate Director of Admissions Jen Stein, explaining Connecticut College's decision.
Even though the SAT is not required, three-fourths of applicants to Connecticut College submit it.
At Dartmouth, the admissions office views the ACT and SAT similarly, according to Dartmouth's Dean of Admissions Karl Furstenberg.
"They're essentially interchangeable. We'll take either one, and we've been that way for at least nine years," he said. "The ACT is principally a Midwestern and Rocky-Mountain states market, and we wanted to be accessible to students from different parts of the country."
Furstenberg said he does not consider either test to be more biased against students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds than the other.
"My general sense is that the biases that exist in any standardized test would exist in these. Background factors that can testing can influence the ACT as much as the SAT. People can get coaching for the ACT the same way they can get it for the SAT," Furstenberg said.
Furstenberg stressed that although standardized tests are required, they are only one part of the application.
"As we've learned more about the limitations of the ACT or the SAT, I think we've tended to take a more holistic, comprehensive view of applications, and testing is only one piece," he said.
Schaeffer said standardized tests should be optional, and admission decisions to all colleges should instead be based on a more holistic evaluation, including recommendations, essays, interviews, activities and personal background.
"The problem with simple-minded, one-shot tests is that you can buy coaching for them. Research indicates that the best factor in determining success is how well you do in taking the most rigorous classes offered in high school," he said.
