Can "SAT/ACT Optional" Admissions Open Doors to Equity at America's Selective Colleges?

Can "SAT/ACT Optional" Admissions Open Doors to Equity at America's Selective Colleges?

Imagine a straight-A student, a leader in her school community who dreams of attending a selective private college known for topnotch professors and an excellent classroom experience – a school like George Washington University, Macalester College, Mount Holyoke College, Trinity College, or Wesleyan University. Our student looks forward to being the first in her family to attend college. Her parents never had the opportunity in Mexico.

This bright young woman works hard and has demonstrated her abilities in school, year after year after year. She’s a standout among her peers and is recognized as such by her teachers. Those around her assume the future holds many options for one so accomplished.

Imagine this same student struggling on the SAT. Despite diligent preparation and focused effort on test day her scores fall short. She feels they don’t accurately measure her capabilities. Discouraged, she wonders if her sights have been set too high. A hint of self-doubt surfaces for the first time. Such a scenario is all too prevalent for some students. Accomplished Latino, Black, and socioeconomically disadvantaged students often fail to perform as highly as their White peers on standardized tests – in large part because of the lack of resources they experience in life.

The prevailing advice to these students might be to recalibrate their college expectations. Aim for something more “realistic,” like community college. But at Breakthrough Silicon Valley, College Counselor, Jenny Uribe, actually suggests that students add schools like Trinity and Wesleyan to their lists, especially if their academic records shine, even if their test scores don’t.

What Uribe knows is that a growing number of four-year colleges and universities no longer require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores. The New York Times reports that this year alone 47 schools have dropped their testing requirements. And according to The National Center for Fair and Open Testing’s FairTest database, more than 800 colleges and universities have chosen to de-emphasize test scores in the admission process.

Early adopters of test optional policies, like Bates College in Maine, report that standardized tests don’t necessarily predict college performance. High school grades and teacher recommendations are more reliable predictors. And as colleges strive to increase racial and socioeconomic diversity on campus, eliminating testing requirements is a big step in the right direction. Case in point, our straight-A Breakthrough student, an outstanding candidate that any top college would want the chance to consider as an applicant, but who may have shied away from applying to selective colleges requiring that she report test scores that she knows fail to reflect her full potential.

Some critics of test optional practices claim they have failed to deliver on the promise to increase diversity on campus. And while it may be true that in some settings, diversity has been slow to change, institutions with a long history of test optional practices have seen steady improvements over time. These schools understand that test optional policies are an important component of a strategy to not only increase campus diversity, but to open doors to equity and opportunity in higher education for underserved youth.

*Despite the fact that many college and universities are going test-optional, the reality is that the majority still require students to submit test scores with their applications. Breakthrough Silicon Valley cannot ignore the remaining importance of college admittance test scores, their impact on student college choice and student financial aid and scholarship opportunities. Breakthrough Silicon Valley offers a 30-hour ACT preparation course for juniors. Students of a similar demographic to our own have statistically performed below the average, which may prevent them from receiving merit scholarships or acceptance to certain universities. $500 underwrites an ACT prep course for one of our juniors. Click here to underwrite a test-prep course for an academically motivated, low-income student and make their collegiate dreams come true.

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Why should Silicon Valley companies care about SB-359?

New bill addresses diversity in STEM pipeline

Written by: Ann Smith

John* dreams of a career with a Silicon Valley tech start up. As a high school senior, he is busy crafting college application essays and eagerly considering the possibilities that lie ahead. By all rights, a bright future is his for the taking, especially considering the outstanding grades he has worked hard to earn over the last three years. Little did John know how his choices would be limited though, by a placement decision made long before his personal dreams truly took shape.

While it might seem like a small setback, this single decision altered the trajectory of John’s dreams. As he explores college possibilities, he is quickly learning that many institutions prefer candidates who have completed college level math courses such as calculus or statistics, especially if they aspire to enter competitive STEM programs. The path to courses like calculus begins at a minimum with geometry in 9^th grade. Holding a student back at that crucial juncture creates roadblocks down the road for college admission and, in cases like John’s, dampens dreams of a STEM career.

Studies show that Latino and African-American students in Bay Area schools are promoted to geometry at much lower rates than their Asian and White counterparts – even when they have demonstrated proficiency in the classroom or on standardized tests. Like many Latino students, John was placed in algebra instead of geometry in his freshman year of high school, despite performing well in 8^th grade algebra. 

You might ask why John was asked to repeat algebra despite his solid grades. Many believe that the answer lies in the subjective measures through which placement decisions are typically made. School districts do their best to get it right, but assessing student performance is complex and especially complicated within schools of hundreds of students. This is why we are excited about a measure recently approved by the California State Assembly (SB 359 – California Mathematics Placement Act of 2015) requiring school districts to adopt a mathematics placement policy based on multiple objective academic measures of student performance. A collaboration of several Bay Area school districts, the North County Mathematic Consortium, already demonstrated the positive impact of such an approach. Districts in this consortium reported an increase in the number of students recommended and placed in geometry by 9^th grade, including dramatic increases in the percentages of Latinos that advanced.  As a partner within the East Side Alliance, we applaud the strides that the East Side Union High School District and their feeder districts have made in implementing a more transparent math placement protocol. We know educators want their students to succeed – in school and in life. Adopting a statewide set of objective standards will support schools in their efforts to make the best decisions possible on behalf of their students.

“Math misplacement is a longstanding problem that has disproportionately impacted students of color,” said Dr. Emmett Carson, CEO and President of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, sponsor of SB 359. “By signing SB 359 into law, Governor Brown can . . . ensure that all students have a fair chance to succeed in math. SB 359 presents an opportunity to increase the number of minority students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering, and math by ensuring there is a systematic process in place to protect them from being held back unfairly.”

We look forward to the passage of SB 359, so that high-achieving students of color have a fighting chance of achieving their STEM dreams and that the pipeline of STEM professionals is increasingly fed by the vibrant rainbow of diversity that exists right here in our community.

*Name changed to protect privacy.

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Test Scores Reveal Widening Racial Achievement Gap in California

"New CA student test results: Over 50% unprepared for college" - USA Today

"Common Core Test Scores Paint a Somber Picture" - KCRW

"Students score low on California’s new standardized tests" - SFGate

"Common Core test scores show state’s daunting challenge" - San Francisco Chronicle

California's school test scores reveal vast racial achievement gap - San Jose Mercury News

It has been difficult to miss the headlines about the widening racial achievement gap in California. While the previous STAR tests showed consistent progress in narrowing the gap between the performance of Latino and African-American students and their Asian and white counterparts, the new test results tell a rather different story.

The San Jose Mercury News reported that: “While 72 percent of Asian students and 61 percent of white students statewide met or exceeded standards in English, only 32 percent of Latino students and 28 percent of African-American students matched that achievement.”

Math results were bleaker still: “69 percent of Asians, 49 percent of whites, 21 percent of Latinos and 16 percent of African-Americans met or exceeded standards.”

Educators point to a number of factors behind the disconcerting results. The new tests are based on the Common Core State Standards, with an emphasis on open-ended questions that draw on critical thinking skills and require students to explain their answers in writing. In previous years, rote fact memorization was sufficient for the multiple-choice-format STAR test. The deeper level of thinking demanded by the Common Core is new to students and teachers in many local schools and adopting curriculum and teaching methods aligned with the standards is proving challenging. This is particularly true in schools already underperforming in other ways - schools that serve large numbers of Latino and African-American students.

While the results are generally disheartening, at Breakthrough Silicon Valley we see some bright spots on the horizon. Breakthrough students have taken the Common Core processes in stride even as some of their schools have struggled to do so. In our middle school program, students work collaboratively to solve math problems and explain their thinking, both verbally and in writing. Program Coordinators, David Tarula and Christina Tran-Kenyon, describe this learning as student-driven versus teacher-led.

As David explains, “During the After-School Program, the role of the teacher isn’t to tell them if they are right or wrong but rather to facilitate and guide their learning. The teacher will ask guiding questions to help the students arrive at their conclusion. By verbalizing their method of arriving at a problem, students are able to error analyze and identify their personal stumbling blocks. Students work closely together and are encouraged to try multiple methods."

We are confident that our program not only prepares, students for standardized tests, but more importantly to one day be active participants in an increasingly complex workplace where teamwork, communication skills, perseverance, resourcefulness, and creativity will be highly valued.

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