Colleges and Universities Leaning Away from Relying on SAT Scores

Many students struggle under the pressure to perform well on college entrance exams.  The burden of having a life decision rest in the hands of tests like the SAT and ACT can cause severe performance anxiety. This can be eased with preparation, but the preparation for the test varies as individuals who attend better schools in wealthier areas tend to do better on the test. In the book, “SAT Wars: The Case for Test-Optional College Admissions,” by Wake Forest University Professor of Sociology Joseph Soares not only addresses this aspect of the SAT process, but also argues aspects of gender bias against women in the math section and racial biases against minorities built into the verbal section of the SAT.

With this type of scholarly rhetoric recently getting more attention, more and more American colleges and universities are implementing test-optional policies for admissions as they acknowledge that the test scores do not necessarily reflect the individual’s capacity for learning. In fact, Wake Forest University, Soares employer, actually dropped the SAT as a requirement for admission and as admitted a stronger and more diverse freshman classes (Editorial of the Winston-Salem Journal: http://rethinkingadmissions.blogs.wfu.edu/2012/01/15/sat-scores-dont-tell-the-entire-story/)  By relying more on classroom performance instead of test scores, Universities like Wake Forest University have attracted a more diverse pool of freshmen as there is not such a hard line drawn with the emphasis of test scores on student’s qualifications