The short answer is yes. Admittedly, that’s a self-serving statement, but the reality is that standardized testing, while an imperfect measurement of student aptitude, is still the best tool we currently have to distinguish a pool of applicants coming from a variety of educational backgrounds where grade inflation is rampant, recommendations suspect, and college essays over-edited, if not cooked.
When I woke up this morning, I read a New York Times op ed entitled, “Will the Coronavirus Kill College Admissions Tests?” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/opinion/coronavirus-college-admissions-tests.html?searchResultPosition=3 The presentation of opposing opinions on the issue reveals the complexities of college admissions and of the system’s inherent inequities.
While the University of California system has opted out of the ACT and the SAT for the short and long-term and many other colleges have embraced a test-optional status for this year’s applicants, I do not expect all colleges to quickly seize this approach. I also do not anticipate that the College Board and the ACT, a nearly one billion-dollar industry, will quietly fade into the background.
As we consider our children’s options today, they simultaneously seem (1) narrowed by the economic ramifications of the pandemic, by the uncertainties surrounding the resumption of public gatherings, by the restrictions placed on study abroad programs, and by diluted remote instruction and (2) expanded because prompt matriculation to a four-year college is much less the clear and obvious choice for all students. Students can create their own gap-year options by serving the community, enlisting in the military, starting a business, engaging in an internship, or attending community college. So, why should my child still invest time and money in standardized testing?
The world is changing at a breakneck pace. No one can anticipate fully where we will be just six months from now. I could be wrong about the testing industry; it could meet a quick death, but I do not anticipate its rapid demise, despite the movement by some college leaders. Our children, in my opinion, are best served at this time to keep their options open.
“Test optional” does not mean that colleges will ignore submitted test scores. Students who gamble and apply without test scores run the risk of being edged out by similarly-situated applicants whose records have been substantiated by scores.
The college admissions system is, as we now all know, especially after the Varsity Blues scandal, gamed. Righting the system and rooting out inequities will be a hard-fought battle, and, as long as our society overvalues and overprioritizes a college education, as the op-ed notes, these inequities will persist to some degree. As a community, we should keep society’s best interests at heart, but, as parents, we must also protect our children’s best interests. For now, I believe our children should test.