The College Board on Wednesday canceled the June administration of the SAT because of Covid-19. If that surprises you, please slide under the covers and go back to sleep for another month. Really, rest is essential.
Wait, you also should know that the College Board is planning for the worst. If the pandemic forces high schools to remain closed this fall, students will be able to take a digital version of the SAT at home, the organization announced on Wednesday. Hours later, ACT Inc. said it would offer a test-at-home version of the ACT exam starting in late fall or winter. It’s too soon to say, though, how many teenagers, if any at all, will end up answering high-stakes multiple-choice questions in pajamas.
Anyway, just about everyone who plays a role in the college-admissions circus expected that the June SAT wouldn’t happen. Packing hordes of nervous teenagers into classrooms to take a three-hour exam might or might not ever have been a good idea. But in an age of social distancing and stay-at-home orders, it’s just not doable — or safe.
Still, the announcement, though surely inevitable, is a big deal. The pandemic and ensuing shutdowns kept many students from taking the March SAT, and the College Board canceled the May administration. Now that the June exam won’t happen, a total of about one million first-time SAT-takers in the high-school Class of 2021 weren’t able to sit for the exam this spring, according to the College Board.
Reality in 2020: The inability to get an SAT score has, for understandable reasons, stoked more anxiety than taking the big test ever did.
During a news conference on Wednesday, David Coleman, the College Board’s chief executive, acknowledged the hardships many students are experiencing because of the pandemic. “There are things more important than tests,” he said. “Our top priority is the health and well-being of students.”
‘Pent-Up Demand’
Still, somehow, some way, the testing show must go on, of course. But how?
First, the College Board plans to add a new weekend SAT date, in September, as long as it’s safe to do that. So, starting in August, there will be a national administration of the exam each month through December. As soon as high schools reopen, Coleman said, the organization would seek to expand capacity to an unprecedented extent to “satisfy the pent-up demand from students who wish to test.”
Students who registered for the June SAT, and those in the high-school Class of 2021 who don’t have SAT scores, will get “top priority” in registering for the August, September, and October administrations, Coleman said.
The College Board also plans to offer the SAT free in schools this fall to replace this spring’s canceled SAT School Day administrations. School closures kept a total of three-quarters of a million students from taking the exam, the College Board said.
Finally, in what Coleman said was the “unfortunate and unlikely possibility” that schools do not reopen this fall, the College Board will offer an online version of the SAT for students to take at home. That would require “remote proctoring” on an unprecedented scale, he acknowledged.
As colleges and universities have struggled to devise policies to respond to the quickly evolving situation, here are links to The Chronicle’s key coverage of how this worldwide health crisis is affecting campuses.
Yet College Board officials said the organization would draw on its recent experience in delivering the SAT digitally to schools in several districts and states. “While the idea of testing at home is new,” Coleman said, “an SAT digital administration is not.”
If circumstances require a made-for-home SAT, Coleman said, the College Board would ensure that it would be “simple, secure, and fair … and valid for use in college admissions.” The organization, he vowed, would double down on strategies for bridging the digital divide.
Let’s be clear. At this moment, it would be hard, if not impossible, for many high-school students — in rural areas, in big cities, wherever — to take an online exam.
ACT Inc. announced scheduling changes of its own on Wednesday. If public-health and safety guidelines allow it, the organization will offer a second testing date in both June and July, and let students switch dates free of charge.
“Our mission compels us to provide as many opportunities as possible for students to take the ACT test,” said Marten Roorda, ACT’s chief executive, in a written statement, “particularly now as other admission information, such as grades, courses, and GPAs, may be missing or partial.”
The Critics Weigh In
Seconds after the College Board’s announcement went public, Twitter lit up with criticisms, as any earthling would expect. Some admissions officials scoffed at the idea that an at-home exam would have the same meaning as the pencil-and-paper model. Others raised reasonable questions about how the organization would ensure test security and curb cheating.
“Right now some high-$$ #college admissions ‘coach’ is rubbing their hands together over how easy it’ll be to game a take-at-home SAT,” Carlo Salerno, vice president for research at CampusLogic, tweeted. “Also right now: Some low-income student is fretting about how to afford a laptop to just take it.”
“We’re barely a year out from the Varsity Blues scandal & CB is signaling a desire to head in the wrong direction. Test security & cheating are already existing problems,” Andrew B. Palumbo, associate vice president for enrollment management at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, tweeted. “The worst part of the CB approach is that it ignores students’ needs & increases inequity. For what?”
“If some schools open and others don’t we are going to be asked to reach capacity in our open testing centers,” Alicia Oglesby, director of school and college counseling at Bishop McNamara High School, in Maryland, tweeted. “Colleges need to drop the requirement now. I’m not stressing my students out all summer about test prep.”
I’m not stressing my students out all summer about test prep.
Since the pandemic began, many selective colleges have dropped or temporarily suspended their ACT/SAT requirements. Now that the College Board has pulled the plug on the June SAT, expect many more to go test-optional, at least for the 2020-21 admissions cycle.
But how many — and which ones — remains to be seen. The University of California system turned heads recently when it suspended its testing requirement for the high-school Class of 2021. But so far most of the nation’s wealthiest, hypercompetitive institutions, including all eight Ivy League colleges, have held fast to their testing requirements. That’s one big reason the College Board is poised to go to great lengths to offer the SAT — perhaps in a brand-new guise — this fall.
On Wednesday, CNN published an article with a curious headline: “Colleges consider the unthinkable: Dropping SAT and ACT requirements for next year’s applicants.” On a planet where numerous colleges nixed such requirements decades ago, where more than 1,100 four-year colleges now won’t require the ACT/SAT next year, and where many families are racked with uncertainty, is that really unthinkable?
