A s universities around the country evaluate the efficacy of their admissions programs, the University of North Carolina system has taken a measured step away from some of the flaws of standardized testing. By reducing its emphasis on applicants’ SAT scores in admissions to several UNC-system schools, the Board of Governors is proving its literacy in the complicated world of college admissions and taking a needed move toward more equitable tools for academic evaluation.
In 2011, the Board of Governors made the minimum SAT score required for admission 800 out of 1600. The new policy helps students who have high GPAs in high school but who don’t quite reach that threshold. Beginning in 2015, the policy will accommodate 100 students at each of the three schools where it is being tested.
Nearly 1,000 schools around the country have scaled back their reliance on standardized test scores as significant criteria in their admissions process. This is because standardized tests tend to disadvantage low-income applicants.
College Board, the college admissions conglomerate responsible for the SAT, is officially a nonprofit corporation, but it places an eyebrow-raising amount of emphasis on generating revenue that appears to have little to do with promoting education.
The high costs associated with the SATs themselves and the many kinds of test preparation courses and textbooks available through College Board favor high-income students. Low-income students, who tend to come from weaker high school and primary education systems, can’t always afford the kind of test preparation needed to make high scores.
In order to overcome exclusionary biases in admissions, another possibility for college admissions officers would be to index applicants’ SAT scores as predicted by household income and compare that data with students’ actual test results.
This would give admissions boards a fuller picture of students’ accomplishments. Such a policy would allow admissions boards to view students’ achievements without the distortion of a test that unfairly favors the economically privileged.
The direct correlation between high SAT scores and high-income applicants is clear, and the Board of Governors has made a good decision to dabble in devaluing SAT scores. Should this test go well, the policy should be more widely adopted to include the system’s larger universities, including UNC-CH and North Carolina State University.
