I sometimes hear comments from seniors and certain proactive juniors comparing college applications to rolling dice or playing the lottery. They’re not wrong. As an admissions committee draws arbitrary distinctions among a pool of too many qualified applicants, the outcome must partially rest on factors that are subjective. 

The truth is that these comparisons of the college application process are not entirely fair. Standardized tests have been one of the objective measures safeguarding the process from unraveling into these totally unpredictable models. Two years into the coronavirus pandemic, American colleges along with organizations such as the College Board are reevaluating the role of standardized tests. While testing organizations strive to reform their exams to increase access and evaluate students fairly, American colleges should reaffirm the importance of standardized tests as objective pillars in the application process. Any college in which the number of applicants significantly exceeds the number of students in the incoming class should require standardized test scores as a component of the application. 

Intertwined with re-evaluating the role of standardized tests is establishing assumptions about what it means to be a qualified applicant. Presumably, the ultimate goal of an admissions committee is to select those students who will best utilize the resources of the college and obtain success in their careers. We define success as the exceptional ability of those students to fulfill their responsibilities in these careers. Because predicting success is practically impossible, many selective colleges have implemented the principle of holistic review, considering academic and non-academic achievements in the context of an applicant’s circumstances. Now among the enormity of factors considered within such a flexible selection process, the education that a student has attained at the time of application should certainly be one of them. After all, attained education partly determines a student’s ability to handle the academic rigor in college and take advantage of other opportunities. A standardized set of questions designed to evaluate foundational skills such as reading comprehension, grammar and basic algebra is ideal for measuring attained education on an absolute scale. Consequently, high proficiency in these areas demonstrated by high standardized test scores should boost the qualifications of an applicant. 

No, I am not advocating for standardized tests to trump all other factors in the selection process. Standardized tests are clearly inadequate for assessing the totality of skills contributing to an applicant’s qualifications, but they objectively assess attained education. 

Standardized tests have recently faced backlash for being less effective predictors of college success than factors such as grade point average. Recent studies have demonstrated grade point averages as stronger predictors of college readiness using metrics such as freshman grades. But such is not a reason to de-emphasize their value. Indeed, the assumption of standardized tests as the gold standard is reasonable. Imagine that a highly selective college accepted 2,000 students with perfect grade point averages but below-average standardized test scores. Given the current state of the SAT and ACT, with questions that are mostly fair, I would not blame standardized tests for being faulty. I would question those grade point averages and wonder why the admissions committee chose not to select those applicants who achieved perfect scores. I doubt this hypothetical scenario would ever occur, but without standardized tests, we would not even know when it did occur. That’s discomforting to say the least. Now it seems that the current disparity between grade point averages and standardized test performance may be best addressed by reforming standardized tests to more effectively evaluate students. In my experience, some of the SAT reading comprehension questions are written in a confusing manner, and the ACT science section seems to be especially susceptible to certain test taking strategies. It remains to be seen whether the newly digitized and shortened SAT will be an improvement. 

At its current state, standardized tests are an essential but imperfect component of the college application process. American colleges should recognize the value of standardized tests and thereby incentivize testing organizations to reform the exam content to most effectively evaluate students. American schools should develop in students the foundational skills of reading comprehension, grammar and basic algebra. I’m optimistic that the concordance of standardized tests and grade point averages will perfect the assessment of attained education.