The SAT and ACT tests are infamous for being used in the college admission process. In theory, these exams are intended to identify how much knowledge students have retained over the course of high school. This tested knowledge is then converted into a score on the SAT or ACT to notify colleges of a student’s predicted academic success during their first year of college. Unfortunately, because of the tension and competitiveness of college admission, many students find themselves enrolling in test preparation courses to boost their scores. Over the last few years, questions have come to light as to the fairness of test preparation considering how it usually comes at a very high price and excludes students from a socio-economic background that does not allow for that type of investment. For this civic issues post, I will consider how test preparation hurts students of low-income backgrounds and how policies college admission offices should be expected to implement in order to account for these difficulties.
The first thing to consider is whether test prep even works. In the past, the College Board has repeatedly stated that test prep is not significantly helpful in increasing students’ scores. In 2017, the College Board announced a new sponsorship of Khan Academy. Khan Academy is a free online learning platform that has also released a test prep service to provide students with individualized practice problems in areas they struggle in. Interestingly, after this partnership was announced, the College Board made a statement applauding the effects of test prep and encouraging students to sign up for the Khan Academy program. Although this program is free, one can draw the line to understand that if this prep course is considered helpful by the College Board, personal tutoring is probably helpful as well.
If we step back for a minute and consider a world before online schooling became a regular thing, a lot of low-income students may not have the resources or technology to spend as many hours as they want on a free test prep program like Khan Academy. Although these circumstances might change in the coming years, companies like College Board and Khan Academy cannot assume that all students have unlimited access to a computer or the internet.
Previous studies have concluded that there is a strong correlation between college admission standardized test scores and the student’s family income. According to data provided by the College Board, students whose families have an annual income of above $200,000 are reported to score 388 points higher than students with family annual incomes below that value. Of course, there are many ways that a student’s family income affects their personal circumstances and ultimately their test scores but being able to afford and enroll in a test prep program is certainly one of those many factors. Test prep is a costly luxury that most families simply cannot afford. The combined (or individual) expenses of a private tutor, test preparation books, and even a family’s availability to bring their child to a prep center every week are simply not feasible for a lot of families.
Going forward, there is a greater need for students to have more equal opportunities when it comes to preparing for college admission standardized tests. The work that Khan Academy is doing to provide students with free access to helpful test prep is definitely a step in the right direction. All students need to be aware of these freely available resources and have access to them in order to improve the fairness associated with these standardized tests.
It must also be understood though that at the end of the day, it is very difficult to ensure equality for all students in terms of standardized tests. For that reason, college admission offices should recognize these inequities and use standardized test scores sparingly in their admission decisions. Standardized test scores are seen as deciding factors in the college admission process and then lead students to worry about their scores. That anxiety ultimately leads them to turn to test preparation courses and discrepancies in standardized test scores across socio-economic backgrounds.
With the current COVID-19 pandemic, many colleges across the country have opted to become test-optional for the foreseeable future because of the health concerns and scheduling issues associated with sitting for the exam. Even before the pandemic though, in early 2020, 40% of colleges were reported as test-optional institutions. Hopefully, this policy will extend past the pandemic and will reveal more opportunities for socio-economic diversity in incoming college classes. Studies provided by NPR have reported that colleges that identify as test-optional report an influx of minority students including first-generation, low-income, and ethnic minority students.
Some argue that going test-optional will allow less qualified to gain admission. Most colleges agree that standardized tests are not the best indicators of college success. Instead, the admission officers at these test-optional schools are relying on other parts of a student’s application that they consider a more equitable indication of a student’s future academic success in college.
Overall, the standardized testing process used for college admissions is flawed, specifically because of the socio-economic barrier preventing students from low-income backgrounds from being seen as equally competitive applicants. Future policies are required on both sides of the standardized testing for the college admission process. First, companies like the College Board need to implement policies to emphasize content learned in high school. If students feel prepared for this standardized testing, they might be less likely to feel like they have to fund outside resources to receive a “good” score which will in turn help diminish the discrepancies in scores between students of various socio-economic backgrounds. Programming like Khan Academy is important in increasing the accessibility of test preparation material specifically for college admission tests. Secondly, colleges should consider policies to reduce the importance of standardized test scores in the admission process. This can be done by simply considering the test scores to a lesser degree or just altogether becoming a test-optional school.
It can be frustrating to learn of the barriers affecting minority populations and preventing them from receiving equal opportunities to do well on these standardized tests. That being said, these policies as well as the free test prep programs are slowly but surely making strides in addressing these inequities facing the current standardized testing implementations. In future posts, I will consider other factors such as access to disability accommodations as well as the ability to enroll and sit for the test of AP, IB, and other college course classes.
Sources:
https://thecollegepost.com/test-prep-industry-access-equity/
https://tower.mastersny.org/4900/features/privilege-sat/
I am so glad you wrote about this, it was super interesting and informing! My high school was one of the more socioeconomic diverse schools in my area so I totally have seen this first hand with my classmates. Something my school did that you could look into is they would have test tutors after school, it was completely free and they were all volunteers (mostly old retired people) I went to a few of those sessions and it was actually helpful. It will be interesting to see how standardized testing and prep is held after covid compared to before. I look forward to reading more about this in your future blog posts!
This post was quite intriguing. I can say that I have never really thought about how preparation for tests like the SAT and ACT affect different groups within our society. Personally, I did not do a lot of test-prep. I simply went into each test with the knowledge provided to me by my high school and hoped it would be enough to get me by. As you said, courses and tutors for these tests are quite expensive and at the end of the day, the benefits of getting a tutor did not outweigh the financial burden. To continue, I think your point about colleges and universities becoming test-optional is substantial. With the pandemic, it can be seen how many universities are now allowing students to submit their scores, if they want, or to simply not submit them. I think this brings up a great point that these scores really are not a great indicator of one’s academic successes. I am interested to see what more you find out regarding this topic!
I really agreed with some of the points you made. I have always felt that “testing” is not the best depiction of who someone is. There are so many factors that could drive that test score…school district, economic status, opportunities, and maybe just a bad day. I think it is important that more test-prep sites are coming available in order to help those who don’t have access to private services. I look forward to reading more!!!