Dive Brief:
- California State University System Chancellor Timothy White has joined leaders at the University of California System (UC) in separate efforts asking for a review of whether the SAT and ACT adequately predict college success, the Los Angeles Times reported.
- White said he would likely make a decision about any change "pretty soon" and that Cal State's decision to look into the matter stemmed from a similar move by UC last month.
- Critics of using the tests as an admissions criteria say they discriminate against lower-income students who cannot afford test prep. Due to their scale educating a combined 720,000 students, the UC and Cal State systems can influence the use of standardized tests for college admissions nationwide.
Dive insight:
Leaders of the UC and California Community Colleges systems have recently expressed concern about the tests' necessity in vetting students. Last month, UC President Janet Napolitano requested that a system-wide faculty group explore the effectiveness of the ACT and SAT tests in predicting a student's college success.
More than 1,000 four-year colleges currently have test-optional polices, about 320 of which are considered "top tier" by the U.S. News & World Report annual ranking. The University of Chicago made waves earlier this year with its announcement that it would make standardized testing optional, becoming one of the first elite institutions to do so.
A recent study from the National Association for College Admission Counseling found colleges that adopted a "well-executed" test-optional policy saw the number of applications increase, especially among underrepresented groups. Under such a policy, the number of students receiving financial aid didn't increase, though the average amount of aid per student did.
Although there was no decrease in the academic quality of students when a college adopted a test-optional policy, grades of students who chose not to submit test scores were lower than those who did although their graduation rates were the same or higher. GPA was a better predictor of success than test scores, the report found.
