University maintains standardized testing as part of admission process

Other institutions differ in test options during admissions process

Joanna Banegas

Staff Writer

It has been 108 years since 973 students took the first Scholastic Aptitude Test. Now, the standardized test is known as the SAT Reasoning Test and is taken by more than a million students every year as part of admissions requirements for college, though trends show universities may be moving away from the test as a way to gauge whether students are prepared for college.

Last year, Wake Forest University decided to make standardize testing scores optional for their admission process.

Martha Allman, director of admissions at Wake Forest University, said Wake’s admissions process has always been holistic, but the test-optional decision has “empowered their admissions committee to be more individualized and deliberate about their decisions.”

“Too often, standardized test scores can be used unfairly in admissions as a crutch in the evaluation process or a tie-breaker in close decisions,” Allman said. “And, the SAT was never designed to measure intelligence.”

According to thetartan.org, a recent research study conducted by Thomas Espenshade, a professor of sociology, and Chang Young Chung, a statistical programmer, both from Princeton University, found dropping standardized test scores as an admissions requirement leads to increased percentages of minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged students being admitted to college.

Thomas Griffin, NCSU’s director of admissions, said the studies of Espenshade don’t take into account the range of students that enroll in a large public university with a wide range of academic programs and majors.

“If an admissions officer uses a shortcut of hard work that reveals the application explicitly, then you can be in danger of reducing diversity,” Griffin said.

He also said the National Association for College Admission Counseling concluded standardized tests have a predictive ability for freshmen’s college success.

“For the application process, we consider the high school record, course grades and the difficulty of the class and the GPA,” Griffin said.

Griffin said the University does not have a plan to move to test-optional admission.

“As long as they are part of an overall assessment that includes many other factors then it is perfectly fine to consider SATs,” Griffin said.

Griffin said standardized testing is part of the overall picture admissions officers consider.

“We’re here to educate the students of North Carolina and the country, and we do not want to create a barrier of enrolling great students,” Griffin said.