About a fifth of U.S. colleges and universities do not require the SAT or ACT for some or all high school applicants, a survey released Wednesday found, reflecting the latest assaults on admissions tests.
FairTest, a Cambridge, Mass.-group that advocates less reliance on testing, said it counted 383 out of 1,788 four-year schools that do not want entrance exams at all or that sometimes exempt applicants, say for a high class rank or great grades.
The last FairTest count, three years ago, identified 280 test-optional schools. The total rose for two reasons: More colleges dropped the exams, and others clarified their admissions rules.
The FairTest survey follows last month's call from University of California President Richard Atkinson to ditch the SAT admission requirement for his system's eight undergraduate campuses, including Berkeley and UCLA. Atkinson wants students judged by what they learned, not how they scored.
Last June, elite Mount Holyoke College declared applicants no longer need submit scores from the SAT test of reasoning.
Some high schools also are questioning the role of admissions tests.
Sidwell Friends School in Washington, Chelsea Clinton's alma mater, has invited area prep schools to a meeting Friday to talk about the exams' effect on students and course content.
But while some educators no longer see the SAT and ACT as master keys to the ivory tower, the exams aren't going away.
Even as some colleges abandon entrance tests, others are adopting or reinstating them. Or they're simply giving test scores less weight, asking instead for essays, references and extra-curriculars in current jargon, "holistic" applications.
The nonprofit College Board, which owns the SAT, notes the vast majority of colleges and universities still demand a test score for applicants recently out of high school either the SAT I reasoning test, or the ACT achievement test. (There's also a less-requested SAT II subject test.)
Each year, 2 million high school students take the SAT I and 1.8 million the ACT. An unknown number take both.
The tests were established decades ago by colleges and universities seeking a standard gauge of ability. Meant only as a guide, they're designed to help predict a prospect's likely success freshman year, along with grades and other factors.
Yet SAT and ACT scores loom large, both in admissions and the school ratings published in college guides.
Critics have attacked the tests as unfair, chiefly because whites tend to do better than other groups. Many reasons are offered family income and education, school quality, courses taken, access to tutors and test-prep courses.
Gaston Caperton, who runs the New York-based College Board, has summed up the disparities as "unfairness in our educational system," while still defending the SAT as a "common yardstick" encouraging "high achievement." ACT Inc. in Iowa City, Iowa, takes a similar position.
Even before Mount Holyoke made the SAT optional, the score was 10 percent of its admissions criteria. "Never a deal breaker," said Jane Brown, dean of enrollment.
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