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 Washington, D.C.'s George Washington University last month joined
more than 850 U.S. colleges and universities that no longer require
applicants to take the SAT or ACT, tests that have been a feature of
American student life for decades.
Proponents of making the tests optional say the switch can help
schools become more diverse and admit students who will thrive even
though they may have lagged other applicants on scores.
"It was really about making sure that the right students, students
for whom GW would be a great place, were not discouraged from
applying," said Karen Stroud Felton, George Washington's dean of
admissions.
The test-optional trend has accelerated in recent years, with more
than two dozen schools dropping the requirement since the spring of
2014, according to the National Center for Fair and Open Testing,
which advocates for test-optional admissions. They include
Wisconsin's Beloit College and Temple University in Philadelphia.
But defenders of the SAT and ACT tests of math, reading and writing
say they level the playing field for applicants and provide an
objective measure for scholarships.
 Cyndie Schmeiser, chief of assessment at the College Board, the
non-profit that administers the SAT, said research had repeatedly
shown it was a strong predictor of academic success.
The SAT is relied upon by thousands of U.S. colleges and
universities. It also gives low-income and minority students access
to higher education by stripping out subjective factors such as
grade inflation, she said.
"The bottom line is that more knowledge is better than less, and
especially information like the SAT that is captured under
comparable conditions for all kids," Schmeiser said.
About 1.7 million students took the SAT in 2014, up almost 60
percent in 20 years, and 1.8 million took the ACT, according to
College Board and ACT numbers.
The United States had 3,026 four-year colleges in the 2012-13
academic year, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
DROPPING THE TEST
Natalie Casimir, an 18-year-old from Troutman, North Carolina, is
among the college students who were helped by the new trend away
from test scores.
Even with a high school grade point average of 4.0, she said, her
SAT score of 1580 out of 2400 had driven her to despair about
getting into college. That score would have put her in the 60th
percentile of students taking the SAT in 2013, the College Board
said.
"I didn't feel like my SAT scores adequately depicted how I perform
as a student, because I did really well in the classroom," Casimir
said.
But she applied to North Carolina's Wake Forest, which dropped the
standardized test requirement in 2008, and got in. Now she is
looking at English and political science as areas of study and sees
Wake Forest as home.
"I've absolutely loved it," said Casimir, now a sophomore.
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A 2014 study of test-optional admissions involving 123,000 students
at 33 schools found no major difference in college grade point
averages or graduation rates between those who submitted test scores
and those who did not.
GPA RULES
William Hiss, the study's main investigator and a former head of
admissions at Bates College in Maine, said high school grade point
average turns out to be an excellent indicator of college success.
"The fact that they are not a great test taker is maybe the only
thing that's out of whack" for strong high school students applying
to college, he said.
About 30 percent of students at the schools examined did not submit
test scores. They tended to be the first in their families to go to
college, minorities, women, from low-income families or recipients
of federal Pell Grants, which do not have to be repaid, Hiss said.
Some data raises doubts, however, about whether test-optional
admissions boost minority enrollment and diversity.
An analysis for the American Educational Research Association and
Sage Publications published last year showed that colleges made no
progress in improving diversity after adopting test-optional
policies.
But the number of applications went up after schools dropped the
test requirements, which also eliminates some of the costs of
applying to college. Taking the SAT or ACT can cost up to $56.50 for
a U.S. student, and many applicants take the test more than once.
A test-prep industry has also cropped up to coach high schoolers,
with IBISWorld market research estimating annual revenue for
tutoring and test prep businesses at $9 billion.
The number of test preparation companies soared to 8,777 in 2013
from just under 2,900 in 1998, the U.S. Census Bureau reported.
Major test prep companies include Kaplan Inc, a unit of Graham
Holdings Co, and Princeton Review, part of IAC/InterActive Corp.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Scott Malone)
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