Despite a high-profile decision by the University of California to consider adopting its own admissions test, Dartmouth will not stop using the Scholastic Aptitude Test and the American College Testing examination in the near future.
According to Dartmouth Director of Admissions Maria Laskaris, the College will only change its testing requirements "if it is appropriate for the Dartmouth admissions process."
"On an annual basis, we evaluate how we make our decisions," she said, adding that though removing the SAT I requirement has been suggested in the past, no plans exist to drop it.
As proposed last Wednesday to the UC Academic Council by the faculty-run Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools, the new achievement-based exam would consist of a general three-hour test followed by two one-hour subject tests.
The recommendation comes nearly a year after UC President Richard Atkinson announced that he would look to remove the SAT from the university's admissions requirements.
Hanan Eisenman, Admissions Coordinator in the office of President Atkinson, said "getting away from vague notions of aptitude and getting more towards a curriculum-based test" was one of the reasons for this change.
He stressed that "this is definitely the beginning of the process." The proposal must pass through numerous committees in the faculty-run Academic Senate before it is submitted for approval to the Regents, the controlling body of the university system.
The new test could be approved by the Regents as early as July, though it would not be implemented until 2006 at the earliest, Eisenman said.
The College Board, which administers the SAT I and II, claims that its assessments, in addition to a student's grade point average, should be the most important elements of a school's admissions decision.
"Most of the really selective schools use both," said College Board spokesperson Chiara Coletti. She said that Dartmouth and other Ivy League schools require both SAT tests.
Laskaris said that nearly all applicants to Dartmouth use the SAT I, with under 10 percent using the American College Testing (ACT) assessment. Though the SAT II examinations are required of all students, applicants can choose whether to take the SAT I, the ACT, or both.
"It's important to remember that in our process we ask a lot of our applicants," Laskaris said. "The SATs are just one component of a student's application."
The College is aware of criticism of the test and has noticed that many more students are using test preparation materials and courses, she said.
"We're not basing the decision on the score," Laskaris said, adding that admissions officers try to understand each applicant individually.
Coletti believes that, with its proposed entrance exam, UC is trying to improve education across California.
The quality of a high school cannot be measured by students' performance on college admissions tests, she said.
Instead, Coletti argued that states should improve education by creating teacher accountability and increasing funding to augment teacher salaries and decrease class sizes.
Congress recently approved legislation requiring states to develop more frequent standardized tests. In addition to measuring how much a student has learned, the tests would be used to evaluate the schools.
In order to ensure compatibility with existing tests, UC will work with the College Board and ACT to develop any new exam.
This collaboration, however, is contingent on UC showing that their plan is backed by "solid research holding up high standards," Coletti said.
