Colleges Urged to Rely Less on Standardized Tests

New guidelines from the Department of Education calling on colleges to depend less on standardized tests in the admissions process may relieve high school juniors' anxiety as they prepare for the nationwide exams.

The guidelines, drafted by the department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR), warn that colleges that rely heavily on SAT scores are risking a civil rights violation because black and Latino students have lower average scores that white students.

"The issue of nondiscrimination in high stakes testing is, at its core, a critical issue concerning access to education," the draft's introduction says.

But OCR's plan has its critics.

Abigail M. Thernstrom '61, a member of the Massachusetts Board of Education, said the tests are an important tool for measuring how well an educational system is teaching its students.

"I don't equate a disparate racial and ethnic impact with discrimination," she said. "I'm convinced of [the tests'] integrity."

Thernstrom said that while she doesn't agree with OCR's logic, she can understand why the office chose to focus on standardize testing.

"When you see the numbers that you do with standardized test scores, showing that black or hispanic students are doing worse than white or Asian sudents... it's kind of a yellow warning light that tells you to ask yourself if there's a possibility of discrimination," she said.

Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons '67 said it's difficult to determine what effect the guidelines, if they go through, would have on Harvard's admissions process.

But he said the SAT tests are a useful indicator.

"Our feeling is that the SAT has helped in many ways to democratize high school education and has helped up reach a much wider range of students," he said.

"There has been grade inflation in this country at the secondary school level," Fitzsimmons said.

"We realize it's very rough guideline that SATs provide, but it actually can be very reassuring," he said.

Fitzsimmons said the scores are an effective way to paint a full picture of an applicant. But schools should be wary of using the scores as the make-or-break factor for admission.

"We certainly agree that test should be used responsibly. They should be only one part of the paradigm," he said.

Other schools may have to change their admissions process more drastically, especially those who use a minimum SAT score as a cut-off point to narrow the applicant pool.

"There are colleges and universities that usually use a formula for admissions, usually state universities," Fitzsimmons said. "We're at the other end of the spectrum on that."

He also said standardized tests are used as an indicator of a student's ability to keep up with a college workload. But a good portion of the applicants in Harvard's pool clearly have that ability.

"About 85 percent of the people who apply here can do the work. We're really making our admissions decision on other grounds," he said.

"People who have 800 across the board and also have good grades and get extremely strong recommendations and have good interviews... we put all this together," he added.