College Board Announces New Plans for the SAT

The College Board announced on Wednesday, March 5th, their plans for changing the SAT. Saying that the test does not focus enough on the academic skills most important for higher education and the working world, the main changes are the elimination of obligatory essays, removing the penalty for guessing wrong on the provided questions, and cutting obscure vocabulary words from the Reading section that are not applicable or relevant within higher education.

David Coleman, College
Board President

David Coleman, president of the College Board, argued that the SAT "has become disconnected from the work of our high schools." A large motivator for the change comes from the common criticism that high school grades are a better predictor for success in higher education than standardized testing, so much so that some colleges have made these test grades an optional portion of the application and enrollment processes. The changes are meant to bring the test back to the same wheelhouse as the topics discussed in high school settings, thus allowing for a better metric of success for students intending on applying for college.

Along with the announcement of the changes to the SAT, Mr. Coleman announced new policy changes for The College Board. First, if a student qualifies, they can receive four fee waivers to apply to colleges, free of charge. They will also be offering free online practice problems from previous tests, along with instructional videos showing how to solve them.

The changes to the SAT are quite extensive. Beginning with the reading section, the vocabulary used will be shifted to what College Board considers to be "rarefied" to words that are common in the college setting. The math questions, once varying over a litany of different areas and topics, will not be focused on linear equations, functions and proportional thinking. The essay section, once mandatory, will now be an optional portion at the end of the test, along with a separate score. The test will be offered on both paper and on a computer. Finally, the scoring metric will revert back to a 1600 range, where a student's top score on the Math section and the "Evidence-Based Reading and Writing" can be 800, each.

This exam will be released in the Spring of 2016. Are these changes good for the test as a whole? Are these changes that could potentially bring the test in line with what is learned within the average high school? High school testers, along with college admissions offices, will make that determination in 2016.

ACT Reports Shows First-Generation Students Lag in College Readiness

In early November, ACT and the Council for Opportunity in Education released a report that evaluated the discrepancy in students’ college readiness based on their parents’ education level.  The study looks at high-school students who take the ACT and how each student performed on the college-readiness benchmarks, in English, reading, mathematics, and science. They then look to the family history of education to determine if the student intends to be a first-generation college student.

The report’s data shows that about a quarter of high school graduates who took the ACT in 2013 met all four of the college-readiness benchmarks.  However, students whose parents did not go to college fared worse on the readiness benchmarks: only 9 percent of the students met all four benchmarks. These results show that there exists a disparity in students’ readiness for postsecondary education based on the education level of their parents.  This may occur from a lack of preparedness from the parents, or the inability to show the students what to expect on the test, or how they should work toward getting a good grade.  It could be that parents who did not attend college are unaware of the high level of prep work necessary to ensure success at this educational level.

The report did have some positive aspects to its data.  Even though the students that did not have parents who attend college had a lower benchmark result than others, almost 94 percent of these students hoped to earn a postsecondary degree, and two-thirds of those students took the core courses that the ACT recommends.  This shows that even though the benchmark results were low, there is still ambition from the students considered “first-generation” college students.  It shows that even if the statistical odds are against these students and their academic goals, there is always a chance for positive results.

Keep in mind that there are test preparation resources for high school students who are concerned about taking the SAT and ACT.  UT Tyler only requires that applicants take one of the standardized tests, but taking both allows for a better chance for higher merit scholarship opportunities!