University admissions officers across the nation are hard at work now building their 2021 freshman classes, as top high school seniors are fielding various offers and choosing colleges. Most universities have set a priority deadline of Nov. 1. for their top students.
This year’s admissions process has been hampered due to the pandemic, as admissions officers are able to get out and visit students in person. For Florida, public universities, the process has an added issues, as Florida is the only state in the nation not to make the SAT or ACT optional, as many test locations have either closed all together or limited the number of test takers due to COVID-19 concerns, preventing numerous high school juniors and seniors from taking or retaking the SAT or ACT.
It is unfair for the Florida Board of Governors (BOG) to still ask students to provide standardized test scores considering the circumstances, even if de-emphasized.
Instead of the test, most universities said they will be focusing more on high school GPAs, curriculum and academics, which is what they should have been focusing on to begin with. Standardized testing is not traditionally an accurate depiction of a student’s academic abilities.
According to College Board’s 2018 annual report, only 46% of high school students scored high enough on the SAT to be considered “ready for college-level courses.”
Despite this, 66.2% of high school graduates in 2019 enrolled in a college or university, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which would mean that the SAT did not accurately assess many students’ intelligence levels.
The Florida BOG should not require students to submit SAT or ACT scores from now on, considering their lack of reliability and common inaccuracy. It should start allowing students applying for the 2021-22 school year to choose whether or not to submit scores because of complications due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
GPAs, chosen curriculum and extracurricular activities are a lot more reflective of students’ abilities. A 2020 study compared graduation rates of over 55,000 students with similar ACT scores to graduation rates of those with similar high school GPAs. The researchers found that they could more consistently predict whether a student would graduate college based on what high school GPA they had rather than their ACT score.
These arbitrary scores schools desire so much have proven to be barely accurate markers of future success.
The Florida BOG has the opportunity to stop making standardized testing a large aspect of students’ lives and start admitting students based on true academic standing and initiatives taken while in high school.
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