Colleges are wrong to go test blind

Posted Oct. 29, 2021

By Tristan Hansen

Staff Editor

Even with Covid impacting access to testing and valid concerns existing about the link between socioeconomic status and test results, colleges are wrong to go completely test-blind.

As the Covid-19 pandemic has persisted and limited students’ access to the SAT and ACT tests, it has become standard practice for colleges and universities to adopt a test-optional policy, meaning that students are no longer required to submit test scores but may do so and have them factored into their application if they please. Many colleges, however, have taken this a step further, adopting a completely test-blind approach in which they don’t use test scores in their admissions process at all, even if applicants submit them and wish to have them considered. Among those who have taken this approach are the University of California system, Reed College, and Washington State University. Many schools that have become test-optional have become test-blind for the sake of awarding scholarships and aid, such as the University of Oregon.

The rationale most commonly provided for this stance is that the SAT and ACT tests are biased towards those of higher socioeconomic status, are less accurate an indicator of a student’s ability to succeed in college than other measures (such as GPA), and fail to represent students as individuals rather than test scores - after all, how could a single number tell admissions officers everything they need to know about an applicant? And although these arguments are mostly true (to varying degrees), they make a much better case for a test-optional holistic admissions process than an unreservedly test blind one.\

Ceasing to consider standardized test scores in the admissions process means colleges must place more weight on other measures of academic achievement, aptitude, and intellectual readiness instead, and by far and away the alternative that has received the most attention is the application essay. Colleges and admissions officers have long touted the essay as a qualitative measure that allows them to glean more information about applicants and their personal characteristics and hardships than standardized test scores typically allow, but research suggests it may be even more biased towards the wealthy than the SAT is. A Stanford University study found that, among applicants to the University of California system, the quality of application essays correlated more strongly with family income than did SAT scores.

“If computational readings consistently find that essay content is largely a reflection of socioeconomic resources, then essay requirements may be worthy of the same level of critical scrutiny that standardized testing has heretofore received,” the paper concluded.

Indeed, I would argue these results hold up to basic logical scrutiny. The SAT has been long chastised for the strong correlation that exists between family wealth and test scores, with this correlation typically being attributed at least partially to the influence that private tutoring can have on SAT scores. But tutors can, and do, exert influence over application essays as well, arguably to an even greater extent. A good tutor can help a student fundamentally reshape their work, turning an uninspired, middling 5 paragraph essay into an eloquent paper engineered to incorporate all the qualities admissions officers have their eyes peeled for. Many students don’t even write their own application essays, and unlike with the SAT, there are yet to be any rigorous provisions in place to prevent these practices. Moreover, what of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who, against all the odds, attain high scores on the SAT through individual brilliance and persistence? Do their accomplishments no longer carry any weight because statistically, they weren’t meant to happen? It is foolish to speak and think in absolutes. It’s even more foolish to act on them.

Many colleges also believe that GPA is a better measure of a student’s ability to succeed in college than standardized tests, and there is evidence to support this. But GPA can be impacted by a number of factors, and the difficulties that a student may have encountered one, two, even three years ago indelibly impact GPA, regardless of whether they’ve successfully recovered from that slump or not. Standardized tests, meanwhile, seal your performance in a time capsule and are resistant to temporary changes in circumstance. Given that the ultimate extenuating circumstance - Covid - is currently upon us, it seems foolish for colleges to place all of their eggs in one basket, so to speak, and altogether refuse to use standardized test scores in their admissions process. A student whose GPA dropped significantly due to difficulties associated with Covid and the transition to distance learning who then recovered and earned a high score on the SAT would have every right to feel aggrieved by a college’s test-blind policy.

It is also true that some students simply aren’t good test-takers. Anecdotally, I know many students who are highly intelligent, motivated, and diligent who don’t perform well on tests. But the same can be said for how many students simply aren’t good writers. Why should a math whizz, for instance, need to write an essay to receive admission into an engineering program? Perhaps the best approach is one in which the essay is optional too.

If there is anything to be taken away from all of this, it should be that a holistic admissions process, in which a student’s unique hardships and achievements are at the forefront, is the best way to proceed. Yet ironically, the desire for a more holistic admissions process is yet another pretext for the decision to abandon standardized tests. There is absolutely nothing holistic about categorically refusing to consider a potential measure of student performance, especially when even more flawed and manipulable measures like the essay are given more weight in its place. It would be within everyone’s best interest for colleges to drop the pretenses and implement a truly holistic system, test, and essay-optional system.