More Colleges Are Ditching Standardized Tests. That’s a Good Thing for Marginalized Students.

The SAT and ACT — standardized tests designed to measure students’ abilities in subjects such as math, reading, and science, and provide colleges with a way to compare all applicants — have been considered essential for most high school students applying to colleges around the country for decades. But with most schools across the country switching to online learning due to COVID-19, many colleges and universities have waived standardized test requirements in their admissions processes. Some schools, such as the University of California system, have gone even further and voted to phase out the SAT and ACT as admissions requirements over the next four years.

A study released by the National Association for College Admission Counseling shows that admission decisions by students who don’t submit their standardized testing scores are just as reliable as the decisions for those who do. What’s more, the SAT and ACT have been criticized for years as actively unfair to disadvantaged students. On average, wealthier students make higher scores on these exams for several reasons, such as being able to afford test-prep coaches and having access to better schools. This disparity is in turn caused by the systemic problem of quality education not being readily available to all students in the United States.

This phenomenon also has racial implications. According to The Atlantic, a disproportionate number of Black and Latinx students attend public schools where most of their classmates qualify as poor or low-income. For example, in Dallas, Texas, more than 83 percent of Black students and 88 percent of Latinx students attend high-poverty schools. As a result, there is only a 5% to 6% college readiness rate among these students.

In 2019, the College Board, the company that administers the SAT exam, tried to address these disparities by introducing an “adversity score” for students made up of the average of two ratings between 1 and 100 for the student’s school and neighborhood environment. They soon changed this system after receiving backlash for giving students a single score for their struggles.

On June 25, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing (FairTest), a nonprofit aiming to end the misuse of standardized testing, announced that more than half of all U.S. four-year colleges and universities would be test-optional for fall 2021 admission — a sign that perhaps this may soon be the overwhelming norm. According to FairTest), over 800 four-year colleges and universities are now “test-score optional.”

“We are especially pleased to see many public universities and access-oriented private colleges deciding that test scores are not needed to make sound admissions decisions,” Bob Schaeffer, FairTest’s interim executive director, said in a press release. “By going test-optional, all types of schools can increase diversity without any loss of academic quality. Eliminating ACT/SAT requirements is a ‘win-win’ for students and schools.”