Boston University and Case Western Reserve said they will scrap the admission tests for this year’s juniors, and Tufts said it will look at a no-testing policy as a three-year pilot.
“As some institutions make temporary adjustments to their admission criteria to mitigate Covid-19 impact on applications and enrollment, we’re reminding students and colleges that ACT scores continue to benefit them both,” said ACT spokesman Ed Colby.
Colleges are being hit hard by a variety of economic factors, including refunding money for room and board and paying workers even though their campus populations are now minuscule. Schools with the least financial cushion could be at risk of cuts or closure if recruiting suffers. Standardized testing, at least, is one barrier they can eliminate.
To be sure, colleges for years have been moving to drop testing, dating back to Bowdoin College’s decision in 1969. Almost 1,100 colleges have already eliminated such scores, including about 50 in 2019, according to FairTest. Advocates and researchers maintain that grades are a better predictor of college success. Standardized test scores favor wealthy students who have tutors and can retake tests, which means that eliminating the scores helps level the playing field.
“Our current freshman class is the most diverse in our history,” said James Nondorf, dean of admissions and financial aid at the University of Chicago, which dropped the test for admission in 2018. “We intend to continue this flexible admissions process, believing it will remain helpful to students, especially in this unprecedented time.”
College counselor David Rion, at the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut, is hoping more schools will do the same to ease the anxiety of high-stakes testing for this year’s juniors.
“It’s already a stressful time to be a kid,” he said. “Then you throw them in the pandemic. Baseline, with no pandemic, junior year is still hard.”