Ripped from the Headlines: The University of Chicago dumps standardized testing…why should I care?

For some of us, this comes as no surprise…another U.S. college drops the requirement of the SAT and/or ACT as part of an admission dossier. So have nearly a third of all U.S. schools…so why is this one different? That depends on your perspective. My take is that this could be a sea-change moment in standardized testing. Will it be the end of the SAT and ACT as we know it? No way. The great majority of American colleges will still find the data incredibly helpful in rendering admission decisions, as well as financial aid ones as well (merit aid considerations can come down to GPA and test scores).

However, the schools at the very top of the food chain may start to arrive at the same conclusion as Chicago: that the SAT and ACT are no longer relevant or helpful enough in making admission decisions for the ultra-elite schools (or students). Here’s a bit of what I mean. When the middle 50% of admitted students score between 1480 and 1580 on the SAT (or 32 to 35 on the ACT), how important are those tests in differentiating amongst worthy candidates? The answer is, they really aren’t. According to the most recent Collegeboard statistical table, every one of those students who applied to the University of Chicago were in the top 2% of all students who attempted the SAT in the U.S. So what Chicago is saying is: why ask students to pay for and jump through this hoop, when it really makes little difference in rendering an admission decision at our university?

The other side of the coin is this: the average scores have gotten SO high that the admission office fears the data points will scare off worthy applicants, costing the university both a shot at the best-fitting students and the revenue from each of those applications. Either way, this might be an opportunity that triggers action from other small-to-medium sized, ultra-elite colleges and universities in the U.S. to change their tunes as well. We shall wait and see…

In the meantime, the Collegeboard, ACT, and test prep companies wait…pensively…for an outcome.