Owen Whaley ‘24
Chief News Editor
In 2005, Holy Cross became one of the first colleges to eliminate standardized testing requirements from admissions. That decision, which drew national attention, resulted largely out of a desire to bolster diversity on what was then a decidedly homogenous campus.
“We are increasingly concerned with the inherent racial and socioeconomic bias in standardized testing,” Senior Vice President Frank Vellaccio told Holy Cross Magazine at the time, “as well as the fact that no test can communicate a student’s passions, interests, motivations, and achievements.”
By 2008, administrators regarded the decision as a success, a symbol of Holy Cross’ commitment to expanding educational access. “Three years later, I can say that becoming SAT-optional has brought Holy Cross overwhelmingly positive results,” Admissions Director Ann B. McDermott wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education that year. “The students admitted under the new policy are more geographically and ethnically diverse than previous classes were.”
Today, Holy Cross proudly boasts of the leading role it played in transforming higher education admissions. The College’s decision, administrators claim, helped inspire schools around the country to eliminate testing requirements. In Massachusetts, Assumption College and Clark University went test-optional in 2009 and 2012, respectively. More recently, Worcester Polytechnic Institute announced a shift to test-blind admissions in 2021 – meaning the school won’t consider test scores at all. As of now, 80% of U.S. colleges and universities – including every Ivy – maintain test-optional admissions policies.
Virtually all of these schools have justified the change as vital for fostering diverse student bodies, particularly in the aftermath of the recent landmark Supreme Court ruling barring affirmative action in college admissions. “We know from evidence that at many institutions in states where race can no longer be considered in admissions, racial and ethnic diversity among the student body decreased significantly,” Brown University President Christina Paxson wrote in an open letter in the days leading up to the Court’s ruling. “Requiring test scores could work against us by reducing the size and diversity of the applicant pool.”
However, recent research has led some to conclude that dropping standardized testing requirements may reinforce, not eliminate, barriers to college entry for underprivileged applicants. “Now,” Pulitzer-winning journalist David Leonhardt wrote in the New York Times last month, “a growing number of experts and university administrators wonder whether the switch has been a mistake.”
Fundamentally, Leonhardt argued, standardized tests are less tilted toward the socioeconomically privileged than other metrics. “Affluent students can participate in expensive activities, like music lessons and travel sports teams, that strengthen their applications,” he wrote. “These same students often receive extensive editing on their essays from their well-educated parents. Many affluent students attend private schools where counselors polish each student’s application.”
By comparison, standardized tests are difficult to game. Studies have rejected the oft-repeated claim that prep courses offer test-takers a significant advantage as a myth. As the Times reported in 2021, findings suggest that “SAT prep has no significant effect or even, in some cases, a negative one” on test performance.
Furthermore, standardized tests are perhaps the strongest predictor of academic performance in college, particularly due to rising grade inflation at many high schools. “Students with higher SAT or ACT scores are less likely to encounter academic difficulty at Brown,” Paxson acknowledged in her open letter. “And standardized test scores are a much better predictor of academic success than high school grades.” Given this, Leonhardt asserted, “a solid score for a student from a less privileged background is often a sign of enormous potential.”
At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reinstating standardized testing has proven useful in identifying those students who might otherwise be overlooked. “Once we brought the test requirement back, we admitted the most diverse class that we ever had in our history,” MIT’s admissions dean told Leonhardt.
After nearly 20 years of test-blind admissions, though, Holy Cross is – perhaps unsurprisingly – not considering reinstating those requirements. “That decision reflected the College’s highly personalized admission practices, which focused on prospective students’ overall portfolio of academic experience instead of a single test or combination of tests,” Lynn Verrecchia ‘01, Director of Admission, tells me in a written statement. “Today, our experience continues to show that the rigor of prospective students’ programs and overall academic performance in the classroom best illustrate their commitment, motivation, and willingness to take on challenges, and therefore how well they would fit into the challenging academic community at Holy Cross.”
Featured Image Courtesy of Spark Admissions
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