ACT and SAT Requirements Juniors, seniors, or any college applicants are required to take either the ACT or the SAT, and submit their score before getting accepted into some colleges or universities. Both the ACT and the SAT are standardized test that are designed to test student’s readiness for college. These test are taken before applying to college. Students or adults will go to other schools where either of these test are administered. They must apply on line to be able to take these tests. The ACT and SAT could be a good source for college admissions if the college applicant knows about each test, how it's scored and its accuracy, and is prepared for testing because it could potentially help them to do better than not knowing anything …show more content…
This shows that some Alice Kleenman feels that more writing preparation is needed to take the SAT. Some educators are in fear of the SAT prep because they think it will not help improve the students vocabulary but just show them what they basically should put as an answer to a question that is similar to one on a 25 to 30 minute part of the test. If you prepare for the test, it will be much easier to take when it come time to take …show more content…
For some schools, before you can submit a college application you have to of take a SAT or ACT and submit it or they will not look at your application. The scores you make on these test is apart of the acceptance decision. Taking these test is a way of seeing if you are ready for college. There is a list of seven hundred four year colleges and Universities that do not use the SAT or the ACT as a college admission requirement. The author from, “Bubble Trouble” shares that Harvard’s Fitzsimmons says it’s rare that an entrance-exam score will reveal something about an applicant that isn’t already apparent from a high school transcript (Eliza). This shows that Fitzsimmons feels that is you submit a transcript or one of the two test that is basically going to show you the same that, that its not going to show a difference. If college applicants score well or in the range or even higher than the school they plan on applying to, then it wont be a problem getting accepted into the
The online study guides for the ACT/ SAT’s are exceptional because it allows the student with appropriate feedback as well as, how to achieve higher scores, statistics and performance of other high school students across North America who have already taken these tests. Team members and professionals have developed constructed lessons in the study guide so the student can achieve the maximu...
Kat Cohen, the college admissions counselor regarded earlier, once stated, “Today, there are more than 900 test-optional schools — schools that place less, or no, emphasis on test scores when evaluating college applications” (Cohen par. 15). Basically what Cohen is implying is that test-optional schools are on the rise. Valerie Strauss, a reporter for The Washington Post, stated in article that, “With almost 123,000 students at 33 widely differing institutions, the differences between submitters and non-submitters are five one-hundredths of a GPA point, and six-tenths of one percent in graduation rates. By any standard, these are trivial differences” (Strauss par. 3). What Strauss is saying is that the differences in GPA between those who choose to submit their test scores with those who choose not to is very small, which can as well be applied to their graduate
A study conducted by Charles Rooney a member of the National Center for Fair and Open testing states that, "[More than 275 colleges and universities across the United States, acting on the belief that "test scores do not equal merit," do not use the SAT or the ACT to make admissions decisions about some part or all of their freshmen.]"
The SAT's have sometimes been the deciding factor when determining a student's admission to a certain college, but recently colleges have stopped regarding SAT scores as the most important factor, and in some cases, colleges are now not even requiring applicants to submit their scores. This change in significance of the SAT's is due to recent controversy over the fairness of the test. According to Fair Test (2001) three hundred and eighty-eight schools do not require applicants to submit their SAT scores, and hundreds more do not place much emphasis on the scores. Because of the recent controversy and the number of schools not looking at or de-emphasizing the SAT's, the College Board, (the company in charge of designing, administering, and grading the test), has decided to make several changes to the format of the SAT's (which was just revised in 1994). These changes will take effect in the year 2005.
Applying to college in the United States of America can be a long process consisting of many requirements. College admission requirements have been changing for centuries “in order to ensure that the full range of talent that an institution is capable of developing is properly represented in the student body” according to Andrew Beale in his article “The Evolution of College Admission Requirements.” During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries admission was granted based on ones “ability to read and translate Latin and Greek.” By the time the 1950s surfaced, there was an increase in standardized exams which soon adopted environmental and nonintellectual factors by the 1960s, Beale writes. As we know, there should be a fair playing field
However, a students’ SAT score indicates if they are college ready; it predicts if a students’ GPA will be high within the first year of college (Walpole 2008).
"Former Bates College Dean of Admissions, William Hiss, said that intelligence is so complex, varied, and multifaceted that “no standardized testing system can be expected to capture it”(Westlund). Throughout the years standardized testing has changed its purpose and not for the better. In the late 1930s, the goal of taking standardized test was to award scholarships to "diamond in the rough" students (Westlund). Currently, the whole idea of taking the SAT or ACT is getting admitted into a college. Standardized test should not be a deciding factor of being admitted into a college.
Standardized testing has been proven to be biased towards those of ethnic and socioeconomic disadvantaged groups. Wealthy students become more prepared for standardized tests through better life experiences, such as top-quality schools and test prep tutors. Steven Syverson implies that students with high SAT scores are presumed to be “bright” and encouraged to consider the most selective colleges, with no regard to their academic performance in high school (57). Those students that were considered elite, but did not perform well their parents suggested to admission counselors that they were “not challenged” in high school (Syverson 57). According to Marchant and Paulson, race, parent education, and family income were found to account as much as 94% of the variance in scores among states (85:62). Students that belong to multiple disadvantage categories suffered greatly in the scoring criteria. The majority of students with socioeconomic disadvantages are discouraged from attending college. However, those that choose to further their education are more than likely the first ones in their family to attend college. Due to the large debate involving the admissions process using the SAT score, more colleges have adopted the SAT Optional policy because it is “consistent with their institutional mission and
Thousands of students around the country and around the world will be preparing for the SAT and ACT tests while trying to maintain a high GPA. These tests will potentially have a significant impact on students' lives. Some will be taking these tests for the second or even third time to get that 1500 out of 1600 or that 33 out of 36, that they long desire. These flawed tests are not truly able to measure how well students will perform in college as they are supposedly used to predict. A single test that students have to wake up for at six, seven in the morning on a Saturday and travel to some random location to take a difficult test should not impact the student's chance of getting into college, let alone predict how well they will do in college.
Throughout high school and college we will go through a vast amount of testing but why? Testing is used to show a person’s amount of knowledge on a particular subject. Usually it’s for one specific subject and not a majority of them, the standardized tests include all testable subjects as in English, math, science, writing, and reading. However, before we can all begin our college careers we have to take one of two tests, the ACT or the SAT. These two tests determine the college you get into, the amount of scholarships you will receive, and even whether or not your will be accepted into any college.
For example, at Whitman College, in using these factors, they determine altogether, whether or not a student should be admitted to their school. However, they mentioned that, “SAT scores alone neither admit nor deny anyone.” They look at an applicant in a holistic way while maintaining true to the idea that the SAT can determine a student’s success, just not alone.
Thus for standardized testing to be legitimate, that statement must be true, otherwise standardized testing would be a very expensive and pointless test. In a study conducted by William Hiss, he sampled 33 universities and over 123,000 students and concluded that SAT scores are a poor predictor of college performance which he defines as college culminated GPA over the years. By plotting a scatterplot that compares college GPA with SAT scores, he found no reliable correlation between SAT scores and college GPA. In fact, studies undertaken by the College Board indicate that the SAT adds only modestly to the prediction of student’s success. Interestingly, Hiss found out that high school GPA is the best predictor of college GPA. According to Hiss, “kids who had low or modest test scores, but good high school grades, did better in college than those with good scores but modest grades.” (Hiss) Hiss elaborated on this saying “a pattern of hard work, discipline and curiosity in high school shows up ‘as highly predictive, in contrast to what they do in three or four hours on a particular Saturday morning in a testing room.’”(Hiss) Looking at high school grades shows much more information that just how well the student did in a particular class. It shows whether the students were challenging themselves with advance placement class and
As a sophomore in college and majoring in education, this article makes me understand why Herrington wants teachers to see, “the correspondence between the act of learning and the act of writing” (1). Students in today’s generation are in a far more advanced state than when I was in high school. A lot happened in two years, students now are taking tests where the questions are half multiple choice and half short essay questions. As a former student in high school, I never had a teacher who expanded my knowledge in a way that involved writing and with this in mind, neither did my English teacher. There never was that one teacher who took it to the next level for us students; somehow they always stayed in their comfort zones.
SATs and ACTs are two major standardized tests. A University in California discovered that if colleges did not require SAT...
William Hiss, Bates College former dean of admissions explains through a study that those college applicants who did not submit their standardized test scores had marginally smaller average GPAs graduation rates than those who did submit their test scores. Hiss states that “the nonsubmitters are doing fine in terms of their graduation rates and GPAs, and significantly outperforming their standardized testing” (Westervelt). Thomas Rochon, the president of Ithaca College and a former executive director of the GRE testing program confirms this observation, adding, “Our first realization was that test scores add relatively little to our ability to predict the success of our students” (Strauss). In becoming conscious of this reality, Ithaca admissions officers decided to also opt out of requiring standardized test scores in applications. More and more schools are following the footsteps of Bates and Ithaca in doing away with obligatory standardized test scores because they feel the tests do not truly depict the academic potential of college-bound