In his new book SAT Wars, Dr. Joseph Soares, Professor in the Department of Sociology at Wake Forest University looks at the negative impacts of the ACT and SAT on the country’s education system. Soares has collected research from more than 20 education experts at public and private universities, as well as liberal arts colleges.
He said requiring the standardized tests for college admission is a form of social discrimination.
“It only provides redundant information from what we get from the high schools transcript and it succeeds in making it look as though women are dumber than men and blacks are dumber than whites and that of course affects your applicant pool and who you pick if you require the test,” said Soares.
Soares saids the standardized tests also fail to capture important aspects like creativity and problem solving ability. Since 2009, more than 870 higher education institutions in the country, including Wake Forest are now test optional in the admission’s process. That means besides a student’s high school transcript, other factors are used such as essays and interviews with college administrators and alumni.
Soares said the university’s policy change has created stronger academic students and more social and racial diversity.
“Since we went test optional, students in our entering cohorts from the top ten percent of their high school classes went from about 65 percent up to 83 percent. Our graduating class before we went test optional 6 percent of them were minorities of color. All of cohorts since we have gone test optional have been about 22 percent minorities of color. We have jumped with Pell Grant students from about three to 11 percent and we have more first generation students coming,” said Soares.
SAT Wars is published by Columbia Press.
