{"id":15084,"date":"2020-01-08T12:12:08","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T19:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=15084"},"modified":"2020-01-08T12:43:19","modified_gmt":"2020-01-08T19:43:19","slug":"more-than-scores-cc-admission-goes-test-optional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2020\/01\/more-than-scores-cc-admission-goes-test-optional\/","title":{"rendered":"More Than Scores: CC Admission Goes Test-Optional"},"content":{"rendered":"

For Director of Admission Matthew Bonser \u02bc98<\/strong>, Colorado College applicants have always been more than data. With its new test-optional policy, CC is echoing the sentiment.<\/p>\n

CC first reformed its standardized testing policy in 2010, when it adopted a flexible testing policy, in which applicants chose three scores to submit from several different test options. This year, the college is going fully test-optional. For students applying for entry in Fall 2020, whether or not they want to submit scores from standardized tests such as the ACT or SAT will be their decision to make.<\/p>\n

Bonser says that CC has always made admission decisions based on a \u201cholistic\u201d process \u2014 taking in information about students from transcripts, recommendations, interviews, GPAs, community involvement, and writing samples \u2014 and that even with the flexible testing policy, standardized test scores were only small parts of their decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think students are encouraged,\u201d Bonser says. \u201cThis is something that\u2019s always been true, that we care about the whole student, but I think that going test-optional really signals to students that we really, really do care about the person more than the data. And I think for counselors, it helps them make the case that testing needs to be held in context.\u201d<\/p>\n

And CC is certainly not alone in this shift, joining the ranks of institutions like the University of Chicago, the University of New Hampshire, and the University of Denver. In the past year, 41 schools have dropped standardized testing requirements for admission, and on average, a new higher education institution switches to a test-optional policy every 10 days, according to an article published by \u201cPBS NewsHour<\/a>\u201d in October 2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Each year during Block 5 President Jill Tiefenthaler and Kevin Rask teach a course on the economics of higher education. The course looks critically at trends and the ins and outs to run higher education institutions.<\/p><\/div>\n

Critics argue that standardized tests perpetuate inequality in the admission process because of cultural biases and correlations between test scores and parental education and income. CC President Jill Tiefenthaler and Kevin Rask, CC research professor of economics and business, wrote about this in a chapter for \u201cSAT Wars: The Case for Test-Optional College Admissions.\u201d They reported research suggesting that standardized testing\u2019s correlation with performance in college is \u201cfairly small\u201d and predicts the college GPA of some socioeconomic groups better than others.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn future work examining the usefulness of the SAT in college admissions, these marginal gains in predictive power should be evaluated against the costs \u2014 sociological, psychological, and financial \u2014 of the SAT,\u201d Rask and Tiefenthaler wrote.<\/p>\n

Paul Tough, best-selling author of \u201cThe Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us and How Children Succeed,\u201d agrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cSAT is mostly creating obstacles for high-achieving, low-income students who want to get the kind of higher education they deserve, and it\u2019s giving a leg up to wealthy and advantaged kids who already have a lot of advantages,\u201d Tough says in a recent interview on Education Writers Association Radio. For example, affluent students have access to test preparation, tutors, and taking tests multiple times.<\/p>\n

After implementing their test-optional policy,the University of Chicago reported a record number of students from underrepresented backgrounds in its 2019-20 class, including increases in first-generation,low-income, and rural students. Based on the experiences from other test-optional universities, Rask expects the test-optional policy to have similar effects at CC, as well as increasing the number of applications CC receives.<\/p>\n

Sara Springer Purviance \u201904<\/strong>, associate director of college counseling at the Colorado Academy in Lakewood, sees the test-optional policy as a powerful way to communicate CC\u2019s ideals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that to truly go test-optional is giving that wonderful message to students and to families that we know that these tests are unfair and we know that they predict income level and how white and upper class you are more than anything else,\u201d Purviance says. \u201cAnd so I think that it just sends the message that we care a lot about who you are as a person and as a student.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before starting her work at the Colorado Academy, Purviance worked at CC as an associate director of admission. While she was working at CC, the Office of Admission implemented its flexible testing policy, and Purviance thinks the new transition to test-optional is a \u201cwonderful continuation of that\u201d and a policy that is \u201cso much stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that just falls in line with the values of a place like CC,\u201d Purviance says. \u201cWhen you think about the core ethos of CC, you don\u2019t think about things like just being a good tester. Now we have great testers who are there, but there\u2019s so much more than that … there are so many colleges that are going this direction, and I\u2019m so proud that CC is one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The test-optional policy comes amid a broader push by the college to increase socioeconomic access to CC. This year alone, CC has launched the Colorado Pledge<\/a>, a financial aid initiative designed to make the college as affordable as Colorado\u2019s \u201cflagship\u201d university for Colorado families with adjusted gross incomes below $200,000, and the Stroud Scholars Program<\/a>, a three-year college preparatory program for selected Colorado Springs high school students that will result in admission to CC.<\/p>\n

Along with the implementation of the test-optional policy, CC will drop the $60 admission fee it has required in the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat, in some ways I think, was a psychological hurdle for some students, where $60 can be a lot of money to come up with on any given day,\u201d Bonser says. \u201cAs we think comprehensively about how students access Colorado College, making the application process accessible is a start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonser says he hopes that these initiatives are only the beginning of structural changes to make sure \u201cstudents can find their way in\u201d and receive substantial financial support.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really, really exciting to be able to bring new policies forward and to continue to have CC evolve in the way it reviews candidates and what it can then offer students via financial aid \u2026 [and] course offerings,\u201d Bonser says. \u201cIt\u2019s an exciting time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado College applicants have always been more than just numbers. With its new test-optional policy, CC is doubling down on that sentiment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1388,"featured_media":14886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-15084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-2019","tag-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2019\/12\/CC-BUL-WIN19-20_More-Than-Scores-graphic.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1388"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15084"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15411,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15084\/revisions\/15411"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}