The people who open and close the gates to undergraduate programs at American colleges and universities, that is, the high school college counselors who help students with the application process and the college admissions officers who make the admissions decisions, recently held their annual professional conference. By far the most heavily attended session at the conference was a panel that discussed the professional organization’s recently published report on the place of standardized testing in college admissions. The National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) released its report on the “Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admission” in late-September. Though the NACAC report has received some press coverage, mostly focused on the perennial question of whether or not schools are going to drop the test as an admissions requirement, it would be helpful for parents to consider the less sensational and more measured language of the report itself in order to gain a clearer understanding of the current thinking of college admissions offices on the question of the place of the SAT/ACT in the admissions process.
The NACAC report’s executive summary introduces what is at stake: “Over the past 10 years, standardized admission tests have become an increasingly important factor in undergraduate admission, as a burgeoning number of applications have resulted in a more comprehensive approach to admission at many undergraduate institutions. At the same time, reforms in elementary and secondary education at both the state and federal level have elevated the importance of standardized tests as a tool to measure educational outcomes. Nevertheless, long-standing concerns with standardized tests have persisted, and the role of the ACT and SAT in determining who gains entry into the nation’s colleges and universities continues to be a hotly debated topic.”
The report goes on to consider a number of topics including the implications of standardized test requirements, possible misuses of admissions test scores, and the disparities among test takers with different access to preparation and information about the tests. In its list of recommendations, the report “encourages high schools and other organizations to share ‘best practice’ information about test preparation.” Of course, at Academic Approach, the question of best practices in test preparation is central not just to the design and implementation of our curriculum but also to all of our work with students, their families, and their schools.
The report defines what it means when it speaks of “best practice” in reference to test preparation: “the best form of test preparation is focused on core knowledge content and on skills that will help prepare students for their academic future.” We applaud the clarity and the ethos of the report’s language. The report elaborates further, stating that, “due to the inevitability of test preparation, there are aspects of test preparation that may be considered best practice.” NACAC‘s report urges “students, families, counselors, schools, or school districts seeking appropriate test preparation for standardized admission tests” to look for “each of the following attributes in test preparation programs:
- Familiarity with test question format
- Familiarity with test administration procedures
- Alignment with skills necessary to master college preparatory coursework
- Instruction in basic study habits and skills
NACAC’s guidelines, particularly the last two, provide a useful benchmark that we encourage students, families, counselors, schools, or school districts to apply when considering test preparation programs. Programs that merely teach to the test, or even worse, teach how to game the test, undermine the educational process that ought to stand at the heart of test preparation. Preparation for the tests needs to complement the work that goes on in the clasroom by teaching core-knowledge content and skills that will help prepare students for their academic future.