Since the 17th century, colleges and universities have been viewed as the means of gaining not just education and knowledge, but also for gaining social status and experience for a job. Over time, this has not changed; every year, over one million students show up to testing locations to take some sort of college readiness exam and even more apply to colleges and universities (The College Board and ACT, Inc.). Most of these students are high school juniors and seniors eagerly awaiting their graduation so they can go off to college; however, many colleges hope to see good scores on an accredited college readiness exam. The two most common college readiness exams are the American College Testing Exam (ACT) and the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT). These tests, along with the Common Application, are mostly used by college admissions departments and college applicants to gauge their future success in college. They are used because they provide easy means of assessing students’ abilities and transferring those scores to the college admissions departments.
The ACT was founded in 1959 by a professor at the University of Iowa. Professor E. F. Lindquist decided to make his own college readiness assessment that focused on the information taught in schools instead of its counterpart, the SAT, which focused on cognitive reasoning. The ACT is a college admissions exam that is administered on multiple Saturdays throughout the year. The ACT contains tests in four subject areas with an optional writing portion. These subject areas include English, mathematics, reading, and science. This test has 215 multiple choice questions and it takes roughly three and a half hours to complete (The ACT, Inc.).
Founded in 1900, the College Board (originally The College Entrance Examination Board) was created to bring order to the then-chaotic system of college admissions. The first SATs included nine subject fields, ranging from Greek to physics to chemistry. By the 1960s, the SAT had evolved into a more focused aptitude test. This tested linguistic and mathematic aptitudes (White). Today, like the ACT, the SAT is a multiple choice test that is supposed to measure students’ college readiness and it also has an optional writing portion. The SAT does, however, differ from the ACT in three ways. This test has only 154 questions, it also only tests the taker in two subjects: Evidence-based reading and writing and mathematics, and it only takes three hours to be completed (Compare SAT Specifications).
Nowadays, admissions departments at most colleges state their application requirements on their websites and they include that one of their requirements is either the applicant’s ACT or SAT scores. These tests are seen as tools by the college admissions to gauge their applicants’ readiness to be either admitted or denied from their program. In fact, most colleges release their students’ average ACT and SAT scores as means to boast their students’ prestige and intelligence. Also, due to the fact that both ACT Inc. and The College Board can send the students’ scores straight to the colleges, this becomes a relatively easy process.
Additionally, college admissions departments traditionally require their applicants to include their transcripts, some essays, and letters of recommendation with their ACT or SAT scores. Although every college is different in their admissions department, they are all relatively similar in what they require of their applicants. This leads to websites and technology such as the Common Application. The Common Application was founded 40 years ago as an effort to reduce the work needed to apply to multiple colleges and universities. Currently, one million students use the Common Application every year to submit over three and a half million applications.
The Common Application, the ACT, and the SAT all seem to make the college application process easier for applicants, but does it really do what we think it is supposed to do? The Common Application is online. It does make it easier to send in essays, but how much do those essays really tell about an applicant and his or her abilities to learn? How much does it really tell the college about the applicants’ personality or ambitions? These tests and application technology do a good job of quickly sending scores to the colleges, but they do not help the college see an accurate representation of who their applicants really are. This is a critical problem for colleges who want to admit people for more reasons than just having good scores.
The ACT and the SAT are both supposed to help college admissions decide who is academically qualified for their college’s rigorous programs. However, do these tests really do a good job of presenting an opportunity for applicants to showcase their academic abilities? Most ACT and SAT prep books suggest that the test taker take testing shortcuts instead of actually focusing on the test. For example, on the SAT reading portion, unless you read above the average level of words per minute, it is almost impossible to finish the readings and all the questions that go with them. Additionally, the SAT and the ACT are indeed testing environments. Do college admissions factor in whether or not some students might just excel at taking tests? The problems with these tests are that they do not account for peoples’ differences. There are so many variables that affect these tests and it is impossible to account for by simply filling in little bubbles.
College admissions attempt to do a better job of admitting the right students that will fit their programs every year. They use formulas, essays, letters of recommendation, and some even use interviews. Most of these admissions counselors try and search the applicants for the ones that fit the system holistically. They use the SATs, the ACTs, and the Common Application, but these detract from the holistic approach.
Ultimately, the college admissions departments and the enormous pool of college applicants rely on their college readiness exams as means of showing off their academic abilities and proving that they are ready for college. Each test was designed for a different purpose, but over time, those purposes merged. In today’s society, these exams are relevant because they not only serve a purpose of testing aptitude, but they can make or break a student’s chances of gaining entrance into college. Such tests are critical focus points among students, applicants, and college admissions departments. Additionally, technology like the Common Application was designed to make it easier to apply from colleges. Both the college readiness tests and the Common Application are designed to help both college admissions and college applicants, but maybe they need to be changed to advance towards the holistic approach.
