Flaws of the College Admissions Process in America
During this time of uncertainty, students have found their normal yearly routines of preparing for and taking standardized tests like the SAT and ACT completely upended. Colleges have been forced to alter their decades-old admissions requirements to fit the needs of students affected by these problems. Companies that manage the two most popular testing schemes in America were left scrambling with unproven, untested methods of alternative ways to assess students online, an idea proven massively unpopular among educators and students alike. With schools regularly held as routine testing sites completely shut down, and hopes of reopening them going down the drain, college admissions officers are beginning to wonder: Is it really still worth the hassle to go through an already painstaking process of test taking even in the midst of a public health crisis? Are our admissions processes inherently unfair to less privileged students? Some have already cemented their response to these dilemmas, and their reasons for doing so are absolutely true.
First, the pandemic has revealed the disparities of the quality and the cost of education among disadvantaged people, notably with Black and Latino students. With the economy currently in a freefall due to lockdowns and the shuttering of businesses where most parents of these disadvantaged students work, hundreds of thousands of them have seen themselves out of work, living paycheck by paycheck. This makes prioritizing food, healthcare, rent, education, and other essentials absolutely crucial to push through. So if education is a priority, why would specifically the SAT start to become excluded as an indicator of performance? The main reason is the cost. Suppose we take the $1200 stimulus bill that was passed by the Senate in late March, and the cost of the SAT, which is around $65. That’s already more than 5 percent of the whole recovery check gone, with only $1165 to pay for rent, food, healthcare, etc. If students do decide to take the SAT and want to do so again, that’s another 5% of the stimulus check gone. They do not have the economic privilege of those living in more affluent, suburban areas where students can retake the test to their advantage many times over to get their desired score.
This carries over to another factor of why standardized testing is dropping in popularity: it’s unfair. The wealth gap between people who live better off and minorities affected disproportionately by the virus simply makes pay-to-test assessments a lottery for those who can really afford it. A quote from an article published by The New York Times aligns with that viewpoint: “Critics..say the tests are too easily gamed by students who can pay thousands of dollars for private coaching and test prep.” With this approach, economically disadvantaged students who actually have the ability to perform on par with their more financially stable peers are barred from their capabilities, hence hindering their chances of even going to colleges that can provide them with a breadth of opportunities to help them. Data from the company that provides clear evidence for this grotesque inequality. According to the College Board, over 55 percent of those who scored over 1200 were Asian-Americans, compared to just 12 percent and 9 percent for Hispanic and Black students respectively (Coleman). A clear bias of the testing system favored towards Asian Americans again excludes those who need the opportunity to succeed in college.
This unfair advantage doesn’t just show itself during a pandemic either. Last year, many prominent figures in Hollywood were also caught lending massive sums of money to highly selective colleges to alter their test scores just to make them look good. From that, there is a crucial takeaway: it isn’t just the pandemic that is gaming the testing system, it’s the system itself being gamed by others who are able to afford it. If powerful people can bribe college officials in helping them push through the very system that they themselves hold to the highest standards as an elite college, then the integrity of the SAT and standardized testing should be called into question as a whole. An easily manipulated system should not be the barrier to those that work so much harder, only to be rejected while others cheat their way through.
Another factor that makes admissions so difficult is not just the SAT score itself, but also pressure and compromises. Currently, there are thousands of college consulting firms in highly competitive areas that promise a guaranteed acceptance into a top tier college. Perfect, right? Well, it comes at a cost too, with payments of upwards of $10,000 to grant you a spot in their programs. The result is not what it turns out to be, as some of these businesses do more harm than good in the long run. Deadlines and at times even criticism can leave the student overstressed and overwhelmed that the picture of the standards set for themselves will no longer meet the “ideal” student profile when presented to the colleges of their choice. This guidance could potentially lead them in a direction that they never wanted to go in the first place. In another piece published by The New York Times, college sophomore Alex Cui writes that his counselor promised “..Ivy League entry to immigrant parents anxious to get their children to good colleges.” He also states that paying for their service got him a “..three day college admissions workshop at a hotel conference room..”, as the fancy backdrop may have been their buffer to lure Cui into a false sense of security in guaranteed satisfaction. However, it was not to be, as the article states “..the consultant was relentlessly critical about topics like Mr. Cui’s college entrance essay..”, which “.. caused Mr. Cui so much stress that he stopped meeting with him halfway through his 12th grade year.” Yes, this student did end up going to an extremely selective college in the end, but that consulting process really wasn’t worth $15,000 of anxiety and feelings of being put down. This may possibly be the reason wealthy parents pay large sums of money directly to the college of their choice to avoid going through the process of consulting, hassling, and stress that Mr. Cui went through.
Looping back to the topic of standardized testing, we now know that many large college organizations are looking to drop the SAT and ACT as an application requirement, and are planning to completely phase it out in a few years. So what alternatives loom on the horizon? According to the University of California Board of Regents (one of the groups planning to completely phase the two tests out), their approach is to create a non-standardized approach to evaluate the skills and potentials of students. It would cater more towards what the UC colleges are looking for in an applying student, rather than assessing them based on standards created by others. Another alternative is the Classic Learning Test, first modeled in 2015 to target usage towards private and charter schools. The test takes on a more critical thinking approach, rather than the learn and repeat standards that the SAT and ACT reinforces. In their modeling, students who took the test reported an overall more positive experience in terms of stress and longevity of the exam, which is just 2 hours long compared to the 3–4 hour length of the other two being phased out.
After a broad overview, one can see that the processes that students must go through in order to go to college in America aren’t the smoothest. More work needs to be done in changing the way standards are put forth for students to meet the criteria in the college of their choice. And with the pandemic outlining the need of a fairer system that doesn’t show bias toward anyone, the admissions process needs an even more urgent overhaul to accommodate those in the future affected by the current situation.
Works Cited
Clayton, Jessica. “SAT-Picture.” Standardized Testing — “A Necessary Evil?”, The Northwood Omniscient, 22 Apr. 2013, www.nhsomniscient.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/SAT-picture.jpg.
Goldstein, Dana, and Jack Healy. “Inside the Pricey, Totally Legal World of College Consultants.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Mar. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/us/admissions-cheating-scandal-consultants.html.
Hubler, Shawn. “Why Is the SAT Falling Out of Favor?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 May 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/us/SAT-ACT-abolish-debate-california.html.
Kirylo, James. “Skipping Standardized Tests in 2020 May Offer a Chance to Find Better Alternatives.” University of South Carolina, 12 May 2020, www.sc.edu/uofsc/posts/2020/04/conversation_standardized_tests.php#.Xycpyi2ZNQJ.
Roger Huang is a rising senior at Mission San Jose High School in Fremont, California. Some of his hobbies include biking, listening to all kinds of music and playing the guitar. He is interested in the field of statistics and plans to pursue a major related to that in college.
