The students in Mr. Seemy’s class are talking about standardized tests for college admissions. Josef read an online post about a college making the SAT and ACT optional for applicants and shared the story with his class.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Josef says. “Those tests do not correspond with students’ real abilities. Plus, some families are able to spend a lot more time and money to do well on them.”

“Going test-optional is probably just a temporary trend in a few small schools,” Camila responds. “I doubt any major universities will actually stop requiring standardized tests. They have to assess thousands of students from many different high schools, and those tests provide consistent criteria for all students.”

“Besides, schools want students to graduate and do well after school. So, they need to know whether applicants are ready for college,” Malik says. “If they don’t use SATs or ACTs, I bet graduation rates would go down.”

“I think colleges could formulate a better plan for assessing applicants’ ability to succeed in college,” Josef responds. “I bet using high school GPAs works just as well.”

Mr. Seemy suggests that students do some research on test-optional college admissions and graduation rates.

Mr. Seemy’s students found the chart below in the LA Times. The data show college graduation rates at University of California at Riverside, according to SAT scores and high school GPAs. UC Riverside has a test-optional policy, but they collected SAT scores after admission to see how GPAs and SAT scores corresponded with graduation rates.

What were the SAT score and high school GPA range of the students with the highest percentage graduating within 6 years?

What were the SAT score and high school GPA range of the students with the lowest percentage graduating within 6 years?

For students with a high school GPA between 3.5 and 3.74, those with an SAT score below 900 had a higher graduation rate than those with an SAT score between 1300 and 1600. Can you think of any explanation why a higher SAT score might correspond to a lower graduation rate?

Discussion Question:

Standardized tests assess a student’s ability to answer a predetermined set of questions in a fixed time period. Looking at the data from UC Riverside, how good do you think standardized test scores are at predicting success in college? Is this standardized measure key to predicting success in college? How do you think factors such as hard work, grit, social skills, and community support affect students’ chances of success? What qualities do you believe schools should look for? Can you formulate an effective criterion for measuring these qualities?