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FROM THE EDITORS
FROM THE EDITORS
By Aishani Srikumar and Crystal Huang
April showers bring May flowers...but it also brings standardized tests! Welcome to our April Verbatim issue, where we dig into some recent changes in college applications and standardized testing, including how these changes affect students at BT and throughout the Omaha community.
We have a lot of content in the rest of this issue, much of which highlights changes that come with warmer weather. In our Activities section, we cover the win at state speech, long jump, and our lone golfer this spring, Andrew Vinci (Class of 2022). On our Community page, we ask the BT community about their favorite spring activities, offer wisdom on preparing for standardized tests, and Dear Sussie has some advice on how to stay motivated as warm weather returns and the school year begins to wind down. In our Culture section, we review Raya and the Last Dragon, which showcases Disney’s first Southeast Asian princess, and our recipes again feature some savory and sweet spring flavors.
The Verbatim staff is also excited to present our brand new Opinion section. This month we have three long-form editorials that wrestle with the contentious issues of masks, which we're all tired of wearing, and about which people have opposing viewpoints on their efficacy and necessity. In future issues, we hope to open this section up to the BT community to contribute editorials and long-form essays on timely topics that they are passionate about—look for calls through Instagram (@btverbatim) for future opportunities to contribute to our publication!
Lastly, and certainly not least, please don't forget to send in submissions for The Ivy and the Ashlar. We're looking for a wide range of writing (prose fiction and nonfiction, poetry, prose poetry, or drama) and visual art (illustration, photography, graphic design) to feature in this year's Hiraeth-themed issue of our creative writing magazine.
FEATURE
FEATURE
To Test or not to Test: How Changes in College Admissions Affect Students throughout the Omaha Community
To Test or not to Test: How Changes in College Admissions Affect Students throughout the Omaha Community
By Verbatim Staff
As the spring and fall seasons roll around, high school students can be found taking preparatory classes or self-studying away, working on perfecting their standardized test scores. The various forms of standardized tests usually come during different seasons of the year: the PSAT in the fall for sophomores and juniors; the AP exams in May for sophomores, juniors, and seniors; the ACT and SAT, traditionally spring endeavors as well, have now become a year-round undertaking for many students. However, while a large number of students spend much of the year (including summers) pouring resources into maximizing test scores, there is also a significant contingent of students in Omaha and around the U.S. who lack equal access to these resources, but face the same pressures to do well on standardized tests.
In spite of claims of objectivity, in many ways standardized testing intensifies many of the concerns surrounding education inequality. Dr. Alan Wang, CEO of the Omaha nonprofit organization Prairie STEM, contends that “when applied to standardized tests (SAT/ACT), those factors [contributing to inequality] are compounded and sometimes negatively reinforced by metrics that are skewed towards certain demographics more favorably than others.” Inherently biased assessments, it turns out, become more so when the imbalances of education are factored into the equation, further complicating the issue of an equitable college admissions process.
One recent change to college admissions that will undoubtedly affect how all students think about standardized testing is the growing trend toward “test-optional” admissions, in which individual students are able to determine for themselves whether or not they want ACT and SAT scores to be part of their college applications. Moreover, a common response to the pandemic in college admissions has been to make the switch, at least for the next couple of years, to a test-optional approach. In our own backyard, Creighton University made this change on its own prior to the start of the pandemic, and the University of Nebraska system implemented a simiilar approach for the foreseable future; even places like Harvard College have implemented test-optional policies in the past year.
According to Joe Bezousek, Creighton's Senior Associate Director of Admissions, the switch to test-optional admissions was not "a path to get more applications, but the right applications." Mr. Bezousek elaborated on Creighton's decision to go test-optional, contending that the school believed the best applicants for Creighton are those who maximize their high school course offerings, rather than those who focus most intently on standardized tests. "Creighton is not in the business of denying students," Mr. Bezousek asserts, which is why the school is not concerned about an influx of applications now that it has permanently made the change to test-optional. For those schools that advertise low admission rates, the switch to test-optional might be more of a concern, but Creighton is only interested in accepting those students who will succeed in the unique academic community offered by Omaha's Jesuit university.
Not all colleges and universities have so seamlessly made the transition to test-optional applications. Brianna Vander Vorst, BT's Director of College Counseling and Guidance, points out that some schools were not prepared to train staff as fully as necessary to review applications without standardized test scores. Another disadvantage that arises, according to Mrs. Vander Vorst, "is that more students have been applying, so it has been harder to connect with the college representatives. They are more overwhelmed, and haven’t been able to spend as much time on the college applications." Dr. Wang at Prairie STEM also recognizes possible reservations with the removal of standardized testing: "Without 'standardized' testing, objective decisions for admitting students to competitive colleges / universities will be heavily dependent on more subjective methods, which could create new problems." For instance, just as access to the resources used to enhance standardized test scores are not evenly distributed, so too is access to other crucial factors in college admissions, such as strong writing curriculum or effective teaching in core subject areas.
Some of these reservations aside, the general attitude in those we interviewed for this story supports the switch to test-optional, especially for the increase in opportunities it provides to those without consistent access to resources for taking and retaking multiple standardized tests. From Mr. Bezousek's perspective at Creighton, doing away with standardized tests will not make the application process "wide open," but could extend access to previously disadvantaged groups. These factors will certainly weigh on the minds of students, teachers, administrators, and college counselors for years to come, but there's no doubt that the traditional model of standardized tests as a rite of passage for all high school students is becoming a thing of the past, with new options and opportunities emerging in its place.
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