In the face of opposition from analysts who advocate the omission of standardized test scores in admissions policies, SIUC administrators are correct in their assessment that traditional SAT/ACT scores should remain admissions factors. A combination of indicators including standardized test scores should be used in determining whether a student will be successful at individual universities.

When college admissions officials are swamped with thousands of applications from hopeful students each year, the evaluation of students’ standardized test scores sometimes can become overemphasized. Why? Because it often is easier for admissions officials to look at a student’s SAT/ACT score instead of looking at thousands of applicants as individual students. As a result, the overemphasis of test scores lends credence to the opinion that low test scores become more of a barrier to college entry than a measurement of college success. This is why analyst Charles Rooney of FairTest, a Massachusetts-based organization opposing the mandating of standardized tests in admissions policy, says education trends are moving away from standardized test submissions.

Research has shown standardized test scores can become an immense barrier for lower-income and minority students whose schools may not adequately prepare them for standardized test success. Standardized test scores also can become a barrier for students who excel in academics but who are poor test takers. Although standardized test scores are supposed to measure a student’s potential success in his or her first year of college, the scores often can become misleading. A combination of factors outside of a student’s test score can allow students either to beat the odds or be beaten by the odds in their first year of college. More often than not, those odds are determined by a school’s evaluation of a test score.

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So, SIUC Chancellor Donald Beggs and Walker Allen, director of Admissions and Records, are right in their opinion that test scores should be used in conjunction with high school grades and activities. Beggs, a former standardized test developer, says it is how standardized test scores are used by schools that should be questioned more than the actual tests themselves. Beggs says the tests perform the function for which they were designed. But Rooney says 284 colleges and universities have opted to make test score submissions optional in admissions evaluation. This is a marked increase from the 189 schools that followed this path three years ago. This trend would seem to contradict Beggs’ opinion.

SIUC’s own admissions policy mandates that students must score a 20 or higher on the ACT. If a student scores an 18 or 19, he or she must be in the top half of his or her graduating class to be considered for admission. These test scores are considerably lower than what highly competitive colleges and universities ask from potential students. One would think that SIUC is trying to remedy the problems associated with standardized test scores with its relatively low ACT test score requirements.

It all boils down to the fact that some standard form of measurement is needed for admissions officials to make basic admissions decisions. But truly informed decisions cannot be garnered from numbers only. An ideal combination of aptitude, high school grades, extracurricular activities and a student’s academic goals is the only true way of discerning a student’s true academic potential.