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Education Dive
Difficulties taking SAT and ACT persist, signaling long-term problems for test makers
Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
Nov. 3, 2020
Dive Brief:
Prospective college students are still encountering problems sitting
for the SAT and ACT, the two most common admissions tests — a trend
that's persisted since the spring.
The College Board, the SAT's provider, announced this week that as of
Oct. 27, some 96,000 students of the 312,000 who had registered to take
the SAT this Saturday, would be unable to test. Thirty percent of the
testing sites are closed.
Fewer students being able to take the exams will hurt test-makers'
revenue and could cause colleges to extend their test-optional policies.
Dive Insight:
The coronavirus largely shut down K-12 schools, some of the most common
testing sites, during the spring and summer, limiting how many college
applicants could take the SAT and ACT. The College Board attempted an
at-home version of its test, but suspended it in June on the heels of a
rocky administration of its digital Advanced Placement exams, which
spurred a class-action lawsuit.
The College Board said in a statement emailed to Education Dive on
Tuesday it is still considering a remote version of the SAT and that it
continues to deliver the SAT online in some schools.
Most four-year colleges, acknowledging barriers for students taking
entrance exams during the pandemic, are not requiring test scores for
fall 2021. That put into overdrive the campaign to move institutions to
test-optional policies.
More issues continued into the fall.
The College Board estimated that 178,600 of the roughly 402,000
students who were registered to take the SAT at the end of August were
unable to test as of mid-month because of sites shutting down or
reducing their capacity. Just over half of the testing centers were
open at that point.
The ACT does not release that kind of data, but it noted in an Oct. 22
statement that "COVID-19 continues to challenge us with the
complexities of late test center closures" and "reduced capacity at
sites due to social distancing requirements."
An ACT spokesperson wrote in an email that around 215,000 students were
registered to take the test last month. The pandemic has limited the
number of testing seats and centers. However, the company continues to
open up more capacity through "unlisted test sites," which are hosted
at students' schools, as well as "pop up sites" at venues like hotels
and conference centers, the spokesperson wrote. They did not address
how many students were unable to test, though they noted the company
plans to launch a remote proctoring option this school year.
The latest round of testing center cancellations is unsurprising, given
the spike in coronavirus cases nationwide, said Bob Schaeffer, interim
executive director of FairTest, a critic of testing providers and
advocate for equitable uses of standardized exams.
Schaeffer said his organization is fielding calls from high school
students graduating in 2022, along with their parents and counselors,
wanting to know if they will need test scores for college admission.
FairTest is trying to persuade admissions officials to extend their
test-optional policies in part because colleges need time to assess how
the recent switch to those policies affected them, Schaeffer said.
"The reality is that testing requirements for fall 2022 will have to be
announced before students who matriculate in fall 2021 have even
completed their first semesters," Schaeffer said.
A couple of colleges have already extended test-optional pilots until
at least 2022, including Colgate University, in New York, and the
University of Alabama in Huntsville.
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