We are committed to providing you with the most up-to-date resources and announcements from the college admissions testing landscape. Here are some of the top headlines from this past month:
College Board Reeling from Dozens of Cheating Stories
Summary: The plot thickens in the SAT cheating scandal. We posted a few stories earlier this month from Reuters that discussed the College Board’s reuse of tests abroad, but now it looks like the problem also occurred in the U.S. In a new story, Reuters reports that “at least five times in the past three years, U.S. high school students were administered SAT tests that included questions and answers widely available online more than a year before they took the test.” The College Board’s response acknowledges that it must engage in some “targeted reuse” in order to ensure “quality and comparability of tests over time” (i.e. establish the correct scoring curve), but many suggest that College Board is simply trying to save money on new materials.
What this means: This is not the College Board’s finest hour. While cheating and question reuse are both more widespread than we’d like to think, the College Board has become the face of this practice and may need to do some PR to repair its image. Although these cheating scandals are not likely to immediately impact the way admissions panels view SAT scores, this kind of media sabotage could prevent some states from choosing SAT as their preferred state-wide exam. Look to the ACT to continue to pop up as a preferred state-wide standardized exam.
Learn more:
U.S. Students Given SATs That Were Online Before Exam
Yes, People Cheated on the Old SAT, But Let’s Not Talk About That
A Note to Our Members About Test Security
ACT Adds Live Teaching to Its Online Prep Lineup
Summary: The ACT announced that it will partner with Kaplan Test Prep to offer online teaching resources for students. “ACT Kaplan Online Prep Live will be available in the fall, and will cost less than $200, but ACT didn’t disclose the exact fee. Low-income students who obtain a fee waiver for the ACT college-entrance exam will be able to use the new online prep service at no cost, ACT said.” According to the plan, students will be able to access “courses taught by teachers in real time, and to prerecorded sessions they can use whenever they wish,” along with message boards where students can seek help from Kaplan teachers at other times. This is the first time one of the official exams has partnered with one of the big test prep companies and is just the next step in the ACT’s attempt to compete with the College Board’s partnership with Khan Academy.
What this means: This is a big shift for the test writers. Just two years ago they swore that test prep didn’t work and wasn’t necessary. Now they are scrambling over each other to gain partners in test prep. It’s a big vote of confidence for the importance of studying in some way for these exams. The ACT’s partnership with Kaplan is certainly a step beyond the Khan system that only offers explanation videos and practice problems. ACT has added instructors to offer guidance and real-time help, the Achilles heel of Khan. There’s no indication yet if Kaplan will receive any extra resources (guidance on question writing, new practice materials, etc.) from ACT as a result of this partnership (this benefit was extended to Khan by the College Board).
College Board Attacks ACT’s Live Teaching Prep Service
Summary: This story is a follow up to the Kaplan-ACT partnership. In an unexpected, direct attack, the College Board has come on record to discredit ACT’s Live Teaching Prep Service. Whereas the College Board and ACT have always existed as silent competitors, unwilling to acknowledge the presence or importance of the other, College Board has now directly addressed the ACT to accuse it of foul play. The College Board states that the ACT has created a program rooted in commercial profit rather than educational service and that they are trying to “replace” classroom teachers with long-distance instruction. College Board claims that ACT’s fee of $200 and partnership with the for-profit test prep company, Kaplan, will place educators in the awkward position of becoming “sales leads” for Kaplan. ACT’s spokesman responded, “We all share a common interest in helping students succeed. Our approach to doing so is to make the highest quality preparation available for the lowest possible cost and for free for low income students.” The ACT isn’t taking this lying down either. They’ve been repeatedly tweeting their “7 Reasons the ACT Leads the Way” handout (see link below).
What this means: Things are getting super heated between the SAT and ACT as lucrative state contracts come into play and college admission tests face pressure from the test-optional movement. This spat is likely to get even stronger as the two power players directly attack each other to fight over the market space. Despite years of insistence that tutoring and extracurricular support were not necessary, both the College Board and ACT now acknowledge that students should prepare for these tests. However, both Khan and Kaplan-led test prep initiatives have problems. While Khan lacks the human element that motivates students to study, Kaplan live classes will lack a customized approach to learning. Students need both.
Learn more:
College Board Attacks ACT’s Live Teaching Prep Service
7 Reasons the ACT Leads the Way
Millions of ACT Essays to be Re-Graded
Summary: There’s no article for this headline; it is instead based on a report from Sean Quinn, an ArborBridge Program Director, who attended the recent SACAC (Southern Association for College Admissions Counseling) Conference in Miami. During the conference, he attended a panel lead by a spokesperson from the ACT. One of the big topics was the problem swirling around the new ACT Essay grading, which we have reported on here and here. The ACT spokesperson announced that the ACT has decided to voluntarily re-grade a sample millions of essays from this school year to determine if changes need to be made to how the ACT scores the Essay. According to the spokesperson, students who have been chosen for a re-grade will receive notice from the ACT.
What this means: This is huge! This is the first time the ACT has admitted there might be a problem with the new Essay and its scoring. What does this mean for students who get a note that their Essays are being re-graded? Don’t panic! This is probably a good thing. For re-grades, traditionally the ACT will only change your score if the score goes up. What does this mean for students who took the Essay this year but don’t get an automatic re-grade? We aren’t sure yet, but it may also be good. If the ACT finds there’s a pervasive problem, they may decide to adjust everyone’s Essay scores. You also can always petition for a re-grade by hand scoring (see instructions here), but it might be worth waiting for now to see what comes of this study before doing so.
Draft Rules on ESSA Provide Testing Protection for Students With Disabilities
Summary: The Justice Department has been looking into reports that the stringent accommodation rules set by the SAT and ACT mean that some students who get accommodations for learning differences at school don’t get them on the SAT or ACT. If a state mandates all students take the SAT or ACT for annual standardized testing, these students have to choose between taking the exam without the accommodation (a score they then can send as part of their college applications) or take the exam with the accommodation which the ACT/SAT won’t allow the student to use for college applications later on. The U.S. Department of Education has been working over the last few weeks to write up rules about how the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) will look on the ground. In preliminary reports, it looks like if the SAT and ACT want to stay eligible as an ESSA compliant exam, the feds are going to require that both tests allow all students their school sanctioned accommodations, at least for state-mandated tests.
What this means: This set of rules could go two ways: 1) the SAT and ACT just change their policies for state-mandated testing, or 2) they go all the way and allow all accommodations even on the regular ACT/SAT administrations. If they go with the more limited first option, it would be a good idea for those small number of students caught in the middle to use their state-mandated test as their real college admissions test and prep seriously for it. If they go with the second option, it’s not clear yet how this might affect international students who face similar issues. In many foreign countries there are different accommodations and standards that the SAT and ACT don’t recognize, thus these students often don’t get the accommodations they are used to either. Likely, it won’t help these students. The final regulations will probably take a few more months to iron out. Both the Justice and Education Departments can move pretty slow. But the rules most likely will be set in time for the next school year’s testing in the spring.
Why Tests Matter
Summary: A Wall Street Journal op-ed argues that standardized tests matter for college admissions because grade inflation across the U.S. is making it harder to objectively judge applicants. “Figures from the Education Department show that between 1990 and 2009, high-school graduates’ mean GPA rose 0.33 points for women and 0.31 points for men—even while their ACT and SAT scores remained the same.” It goes on to talk about how grade inflation is systemic to all education, making its way to college courses as well.
What this means: Grade inflation is certainly a major trend in education. As all of us can attest, the wide variety in school grading systems is one of the reasons colleges use standardized tests. For some students, grade inflation explains why there is such a disconnect between their test scores and their GPAs. It’s not that they are “bad test takers” (the common refrain we all hear) but rather that grading in schools has changed while these tests have largely not.
How U.S. News Accounts for Test-Optional Colleges in Rankings
Summary: An article answering the $1,000 question: how does a college’s decision to go test-optional work in the U.S. News and World Report rankings? U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) answers the question this way: “Since 2002, in the case of test-optional schools, [we]…give test scores less weight if less than 75 percent of an entering class submits ACT or SAT scores…because the lack of data for 25 percent of students or more likely means the ACT or SAT score is not representative of the entire class…If less than 75 percent of an entering class submits ACT or SAT scores, then a school’s overall ACT or SAT score is discounted by 15 percent in the ranking calculations…When schools do not use SAT or ACT scores at all in admissions decisions…[we] do not rank them.” Their data are listed separately on usnews.com, so that students can still access their information as they conduct their research.
What this means: We all know that going test-optional tends to raise the reported average SAT and ACT scores for a college (most low scorers just decide not to submit SAT or ACT scores). And it’s likely that as a result a school’s rank can jump if its SAT/ACT average goes up. USNWR is making a good effort to adjust for this inflation, but it’s not a perfect system. There could be some inflation even if the school gets by the 75% report benchmark. Second, if less than 75% of students don’t report and USNWR discounts scores by 15%, the inflation of reported scores might still be strong enough to boost a school’s rankings. Third, there are all the other parts to the rankings that indirectly boost a schools’ rank, such as rising number of applicants or when a school goes test-optional. It appears that the rankings don’t account for that effect.
Applied to Stanford or Harvard? You Probably Didn’t Get In
Summary: This year top U.S. colleges hit all-time high numbers for applications. But that came with all-time lows for percent of students accepted. Because most schools aren’t increasing the number of students they accept but more students are applying, the percent accepted keeps dropping. Stanford hit just 4.7% accepted this year, not just an all-time low for Stanford but for all U.S. colleges.
What this means: College admissions competition is just getting fiercer, and it will likely continue as long as students can apply to as many schools as they want and do so easily through online programs, like Common App.
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