Enlight21

Author: Kylee Kim | Category: Unkown category | Date: 04-19-2020

In the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic, there have been various and drastic changes to student’s lives and the rest of their 2019-2020 school year. For the class of 2021, their list of college requirements has just gotten drastically shorter. Multiple universities, as a result of the shelter in place orders all over the United States, has removed the requirement for an SAT/ACT assessment on their college applications. While this might seem to be a temporary measure since standardized testing has been a fundamental part of high schooler’s lives, some colleges are already suspending that requirement for the next 2-3 school years. Which means that currently, high school juniors, sophomores, and freshman will also be similarly affected. This has been a movement under consideration for several years now, but the acceleration of this under the Coronavirus has begun the rise of student advocacy groups. These groups voice their campaign #TestOptionalNOW, which advocates for the complete elimination of mandatory standardized testing for all colleges and universities. This is primarily based on the issue that what we consider to be “standardized” is no longer the case. Tutors and test prep is now an accessible feature, but at a very high price point, preparing more wealthy students to get higher goals while others don’t have access to such materials. 

These advocate groups have argued against this system because of the imbalance in the economics of different social groups. For example, there is an evident trend in the acceptance of students from higher-income families compared to low-income families, potentially stemming from the lack of access to test preparation. Even in the test where everyone is supposed to enter as “equals”, there is still a trend for white and Asian-American students to score higher than students of Hispanic of African-American background. A student’s value or success in academics should not be defined by a single test that doesn’t take into concern the different circumstances of these students. 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/14/us/coronavirus-colleges-sat-act-test-trnd/index.html

About: Kylee Kim