By Muskaan Mahajan
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple universities including the University of California (UC) system, California State University (CSU) system, and some private colleges including California Institute of Technology, Dickinson College, and Reed College have gone test-blind, meaning they will not take standardized testing scores such as the SAT and ACT into consideration for admissions. UCs that have gone test-blind include UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, UC Merced, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Santa Cruz. Schools going test-blind benefit high school students for a few key reasons.
Colleges should not judge a person’s application based on his or her SAT or ACT score because it does not show anything substantial about the applicant other than if they are a good test-taker or not. Standardized testing does not show a person’s interests, personality, or growth over time. UCs and CSUs should give more weight to grades and extracurricular activities. Grades show a student’s long-term academic achievement. According to research from William Bowen, President of Princeton University, high school grades have a more incremental predictive power of college grades and graduation rates, while the SAT may not be a good measure of student potential. Extracurricular activities show what a person is passionate about and confirms their interests in majors they are applying to, arts, sports, and many other areas. Both of these factors are better methods of evaluating an applicant because they give admissions officers more context about the candidate, helping them to know the candidate better.
Furthermore, these standardized tests can prevent racial minorities and low-income students from attaining higher education. Many people believe that the SAT and ACT are objective and show the “intelligence” level of a person. However, Latino and Black students receive lower scores, on average, compared to Asian and White students. According to Janet Loren of Bloomberg, in the “most recent score report for the class of 2019, the mean total score SAT was 933 for Black students and 1,114 for White students.” Consequently, Latino and Black students are labeled as “dumb” or “not college-ready,” while Asian and White students are labeled as “smart” because they do well on standardized tests. Yet, this assessment is not an accurate reflection of students’ abilities because many minorities come from low-income families who are unable to afford test prep materials to do well on standardized tests. According to Blaire Brody from The Fiscal Times, a standardized test prep session costs $100-$200 an hour, and some recognized companies like Kaplan and Princeton Review charge a thousand dollars per hour. People who live paycheck to paycheck should not have to be concerned with prioritizing taking a test over their immediate needs. Going test-blind would remove these unjust barriers and false measures of intelligence, therefore increasing access to higher education for minority and low-income students.
Moreover, according to Joseph A. Soares, a Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University, minorities in the UC system last year made up 23% of applicants who were in the top 10% of their high school, while minorities only made up 5% of applicants who were in the top 10% of test scores. This empirical evidence proves that standardized tests widen racial gaps in the admission process while other factors in the admission process such as grades decrease racial gaps.
Standardized testing also negatively impacts a student’s mental health. Since the SAT and the ACT are very important tests that colleges use to help decide if they should accept or reject an applicant, students put pressure on themselves because they think if they do not perform well on this one test, it could ruin their entire application. Test anxiety leads to people panicking in the middle of their test, not being able to process the information that is being given to them, and forgetting the basic skills that they know. According to a study at Wayne State University, a student’s mental health is worse after scores come out because if the student receives a “bad” score they go into a cycle of stress and depression. At the end of the day, standardized testing worsens students’ mental health since it is a stressful exam that has a high weightage on a student’s application.
Currently, many students are still planning to take standardized tests. The College Board is continuing to administer tests even though we are going through a pandemic. Some states such as California and New York are not administering tests because of how bad the pandemic is affecting them. However, some wealthy families are able to fly to other states, which not only is unfair to other families but also increases the chances of spreading the virus. Going test-blind in this unique situation ensures that wealthy students do not have even more of an unfair advantage and would also prevent them from risking their health and the health of others just to take a test. The states that allow for test administration right now would also lose the incentive to have their students gather in close proximity. An inaccurate test is not worth dying for.
In conclusion, a test-blind policy will lead to a truly holistic review process. This will help racial minorities attain higher education and improve students’ mental health.