Earlier this week, a California court stopped the UC system from using the ACT or SAT as a form of evaluating potential students, citing that it was unfair to disabled students who could not reach a testing center. In doing so, the court has laid bare a number of issues with testing and American college admissions.
If you’re reading this expecting a diatribe against testing, please stop to avoid disappointment. We believe tests are not perfect, but instead are useful as a valuable piece of the admissions question. Of course, some tests are worth more than others. The ACT and SAT have their merits, but these are little better than indicators of whether or not students possess college level math and verbal skills.
More stringent universities should have higher requirements; after all, the point of going to a more rigorous university is to be challenged. But is there really a vast difference between a 1470 and a 1520 on the SAT? Or a 32 and a 34 on the ACT? Of course not, these differences have been introduced by places like Harvard and Stanford, and perpetuated by online forums that seek to provide some logic to American college admissions.
Spoiler alert, there isn’t any.
But I digress.
Instead, Covid-19 has given a different category of tests a perfect chance to prove their utility, and the students who take them a golden opportunity to prove their knowledge. These are of course subject tests, which are written to correlate to what baseline knowledge should be acquired during a course of study in a given field. The AP tests are probably the most famous of these, but SAT Subject tests are also invaluable, and offered much more frequently.
Ideally, these tests are taken at the end of a course of study, but they provide a standardized view as to if a student really did learn what they were supposed to absorb. Given the large number of pass/fail classes, virtual learning environments, and more, having a standardized way of backing up that one did well in a course will be invaluable to admissions professionals.
Of course, foreign universities already know this.
That’s why many of them require subject tests to be scheduled by the student. It helps to prove that they actually know what is required of them. Note that I said ‘scheduled;’ these tests can happen as late as May or June; as long as a teacher or a guidance counselor can provide a rough prediction of a student’s results, the university will be happy to offer a conditional acceptance.
Even for those applying to American universities, subject tests can help get students off the waitlist or negotiate for more financial aid.
That said, different students have different strengths. Students who feel that the impending erosion of tests in the US admissions process is a blessing should take advantage of that state of affairs. However, students who test exceptionally well and feel that this weakens their overall application should start to look abroad.