Do Standardized Tests pass the test of Meritocracy?
Meritocracy was termed in 1958 by Michael Dunlop Young in a satirical paper he wrote mocking the British education system (thoughtco.com). Since then, the ideology has seeped into the foundations of various social institutions such as politics, jobs, and more to replace nepotism. Nowhere is this ideology of meritocracy more prominent than in education where a student’s ability to succeed in class correlates directly with the opportunities that are offered to them in the form of scholarships, better universities, and awards. This then led to a plethora of “measures” to quantitatively determine a student’s merit. These measures come in the form of class rank, GPA, extra-curriculars, and standardized testing. Of these measures standardized testing is the most interesting one by nature of the way that it is administered, the volume of students that take it every year, and it being a rite of passage to get into thousands of universities that require it. The two most prominent forms of standardized tests for college admissions in the US are the SAT and the ACT and this paper will use these two forms of standardized testing to answer two questions. Do standardized tests accurately measure merit? Do Standardized Tests uphold the values of meritocracy?
What are these two forms of Standardized tests?
To accurately answer these questions, one must first look at how standardized tests rose to prominence in college admissions and why. The idea of standardized testing has been around for a while dating back to the Han Dynasty in China (Britannica). Standardized testing as we know it in the US — a prerequisite for college entrance- came about in the 1890s Charles William Eliot proposed it in the 1990s(NEA). The SAT was the first out of the two and was taken by students in 1926. It reached widespread adoption after James B Conant implemented it in 1933 to provide scholarships to “gifted” children from public schools to enter Harvard. Conant liked the SAT since “it measured pure intelligence, regardless of the quality of the taker’s high school education.” (PBS) This made standardized testing a means to lessen the grip that affluence had over higher education and the opportunities that came with a college education. This made standardized testing a major proponent in reducing the grip that the elite had over university attendance for it now allowed a way for those who did not have the means to afford the high schools that were “certified” by universities, but still had the intelligence hard work and ambition to access and flourish in college (manhattanreview). The ACT rose as a competitor to the SAT in 1959. Both these tests have undergone various reforms in the structure and the content tested and nearly a century has passed since the SAT was first administered so do, they still perform as well in measuring merit and opening opportunities to those who deserve instead of those who have the money and affluence to gain access through nepotism.
Do Standardized tests accurately measure merit?
The SATs and the ACTs are both high-stakes tests in which all students are tested on the same content, are given the same testing conditions, and are graded the same way. This standardization is what makes the SAT and the ACT extremely attractive measures of merit, unlike GPA which vary vastly from school to school hence why many colleges in the US require either the SAT or the ACT as an objective measure to gauge a student’s merit and predict a student’s ability to successfully graduate from college. This sentiment is echoed by Marilyn McGrath the director of undergraduate admissions at Harvard at the time of this USA Today article, where she states, “it helps calibrate a student’s grades.”
This notion that standardized tests are good predictors of successful college graduation and an accurate measure of a student’s capabilities is backed up by research done by Lianqun Sun a graduate student at Utah State University. Sun uses five different mathematical models to determine how likely they are to predict successful college graduation from two different categories of data. (usu.edu). He found that an increase in ACT English and ACT Math scores lead to a 9.88% and 6.56% increase in college graduation rates. This shows that there is some correlation between higher ACT and successful college graduation rates and in turn grounds the idea that standardized tests work as a predictor and measure of merit. However, when looking at numbers such as 9.88% and 6.56% they do not match up to the level of importance placed on standardized tests as a fool-proof method to gauge a student’s merit and in turn their ability to successfully graduate college. This difference between the pedestal that standardized tests held as a gold standard at measuring academic excellence and the harsh reality that its predictive capabilities are marginal are made worse when research done by two UChicago consortium researchers revealed that high school’s GPA could predict the chances of successful college graduation anywhere from 20% to 8-% depending on the GPAs of the students. (uchicago.edu) This then brings up two questions. Why do standardized tests fail to predict merit accurately, and if so, why they are still used by most colleges?
How standardized tests fail to measure merit accurately
The SAT and ACT are high-stakes, timed multiple-choice exams. This is not representative of the nature of college courses which usually test students on a wide range of content with varying formats ranging from multiple choice to long response questions over a semester. The SAT and ACT being multiple-choice questions measure a narrow set of skills that students need which leads to standardized testing losing some of its predictive and measuring capabilities. High school GPAs on the other hand which is conventionally thought of as a subpar indicator of a student’s academic prowess since they vary from teacher to teacher and from school to school take into consideration all these crucial factors and have proven through extensive research as a better indicator of successful college graduation and a measure of student’s merit. This inability to measure all a student’s academic and professional skill sets leads to many students losing out on admission to their dream colleges and in turn losing out on the various opportunities that these universities have to offer (forbes). So why do colleges still require standardized tests? This is a question for which answers tend to be rather vague and a clear lack of research into this since colleges do not want to directly respond to these questions and never really had to answer mainly due to the secretive nature of the admissions process. The 2021 admissions cycle presents an excellent case study to answer this question since a record high of 1600 colleges (edsurge) went test-optional including elite colleges such as Harvard. A great opportunity to both determines the use of standardized testing in the college admissions process and what other factors would come into play with the lack of it.
Do Standardized tests promote meritocracy?
Recall how standardized testing was initially implemented at Harvard to allow students who did not have the means to afford an elite education but had the academic prowess to go head-to-head with students from elite high schools to enter Harvard and reap the opportunities that an elite education can provide. This idea that standardized tests allow students from economically underprivileged backgrounds to show their academic aptitude is something that is still advertised by both the SAT and the ACT.
This screenshot is from the SAT’s official flyer (here). “Connects students with scholarships,” and “Drives equity” are both outcomes that James B Conant envisioned standardized tests to uphold- a rite of passage to fulfill success to gain admission to college irrespective of their background. The flyer advertises how it connects students to scholarships which enables students of disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds to attend college without having to worry about the means to afford the ever-rising tuition fees. Colleges of Distinction, a website, lists the various scholarship opportunities that are open to students with ACT scores from 10 to a perfect score. Students who have a minimum score of 14 can receive the “American Indian Education Fund” — an award that gives up to $2000, and those students that have a minimum score of 30 have the opportunity to be awarded $10000 through the “Woodcock Family Education Scholarship Program”. This is a perfect embodiment of meritocracy since students who show commitment towards their education are rewarded with a reduction and in some cases elimination of the cost of attendance to colleges for the hard work, they put into making sure their standardized test scores reflected their commitment and brilliance. This is proving that standardized tests do help disadvantaged to not only gain access in terms of admission but also in terms of financial aid. In doing so we not only see the SAT and the ACT striving to provide opportunities for any student irrespective of his/her racial or financial background to be rewarded solely only their effort, but it also shows that they are still able to do what James B Conant envisioned them to do when he first introduced it in college admissions back in the early 1900s.
However, one must take this information with a grain of salt. Since its inception in the early 1900s, those who have affluence and connections have found ways to legally and illegally “game the system” through test prep, study conditions, and blatant cheating.
Standardized test Prep
Standardized test prep is a $30 billion industry that provides a massive advantage to those students who can afford it.
Look at this flyer by Ally Learning — a test prep service- to understand the pricing of these services and the advantages they provide. The bold “ONLY 399”, and the list of lists of advantages it provides: “Mastery of each subject”, and “success on the SAT exam” instantly grab any reader’s attention. $399 is by no means affordable for a family in which the parent and the student need to maintain jobs to afford day-to-day expenses. The for 10 hours of one-on-one tutoring from renowned companies like the Princeton Review ( MarketWatch). A 2009 study conducted by the NACAC showed that SAT prep helped increase the “critical reading scores by about 10 points and math scores by about 20 points.” (thoughtco.com) A 30-point increase can determine between who gets into a high-tier college and who does not. This leads to students who can afford these tutoring services gaining an advantage over those who cannot for they now receive help from tutors who know the concepts tested in the SAT, and who can give expert testing tips. This then makes the standardized test a test on who can afford the better tutor service an unfair advantage for affluent kids to get a better starting point.
Family Support
A student’s performance in school is strongly tied to their family conditions and the support they receive from their families. Students who come from affluent families get access to test prep and we saw how that gives them an advantage over other students on the basis that their parents are richer. Another aspect that comes with coming from an affluent family is the lack of worry about your present living conditions and your future aspirations something two lingering thoughts that permeate into a student’s capability to prove their merit.
This cartoon by Josh C. Lyman perfectly encapsulates the hidden imbalances that are produced because of affluence. On the left, we have Jim a student who any observer can instantly understand that symbolizes affluence and connections. Though he is an imaginary figure the differences he represents are very real. Students who come from affluent families are kept up by an impeccable support system provided for by their parents. This involves standardized test prep, a stable family income that eliminates distractions and allows students to focus entirely on their education, and the knowledge that they can make mistakes without having to worry about consequences both financially and prospects. This gives students like “Jim” the liberty to focus entirely on their education, standardized tests, and their aspirations. Meanwhile, students like Seng who are equally capable are not given the liberties of a worry-free life both financially and in family conditions. In addition to their education, they oftentimes must juggle a job, take care of a sibling, whilst competing with students like Jim who have a safety net. Standardized Tests exacerbate this pre-existing inequality since students coming from unstable families do not tend to get the free time they need to practice for these tests. This is made worse when they are unable to negotiate accommodations from test boards to take into consideration their family background due to the lack of emotional connection with standardized test boards something that school GPAs can accommodate through teacher-student relationships. This difference is highlighted by Standardized Tests and made worse since students like Jim get into highly selective colleges and unknowingly take the place of a student like Seng who could have performed just as well if they were given the opportunity and the accommodations needed to accurately show their abilities leading to a cycle of poverty since these poor but equally deserving students aren't given the opportunities needed because of a test.
Cheating
This is the most blatant form of advantage exercised by elites that directly goes against what meritocracy stands for. This happens in three ways- see a psychologist to gain more time, hire a stand-in, or bribe the proctor. A study conducted by the Wall Street Journal found that students from affluent families are more likely to get the “504 designation” (provided to students with anxiety or ADHD) which gives these students a loophole to gain extra or a private space to take the exam that increases scores by 350+ points (NYTimes). Especially considering how we just discussed that kids coming from unstable families are not given extra time this is an unjust method for affluent kids who already have multiple support systems in place to get extra time. Stand-ins and Bribing proctors are both against the policies of the SAT and are grounds for legal action. These students can pay enormous sums of money to get their scores altered and these altered scores that do not represent a student’s capabilities play some part in gaining admission into top tier universities at the expense of someone else who earned their score with just their hard work and intelligence losing out on an opportunity that could have been theirs if it was not for a rich student waving dollar signs around to gain more points.
The Final score
Standardized tests at its inception under James B Conant sought to be an equalizer and provide opportunities to better colleges and in turn better career prospects for students who proved that they are academically gifted. After nearly a century standardized tests did not stand the test of time as well. Though they still allow for equalizing opportunities by providing an objective measure to determine which students to reward scholarships and predict if a student can handle the academic rigor of a top-tier university and in turn provide the opportunity for them to climb up the social order. Does this mean that we scrap standardized tests? Not necessarily.
Standardized tests do have their flaws that allow affluent families to maintain their status but without standardized tests there wont be an objective measure that disregards prestige of their high school, their socio-economic status (to a certain extent) , and their race. We would most likely revert back to the era where only students who came from rich families gain access to higher education. Standardized tests allowed for progress to be made and it is time that we thought about adapting them to make further advances. Some universities are making these advancements by going test-optional- a movement that is steadily gaining steam. Such policies make standardized tests a choice for students to take and in doing so remove the unfair advantages that rich students get. The college board that administers the SAT has introduced free “Khan academy” SAT prep and the primary goal of the restructuring of the test in 2016 was to reduce the advantage that rich students get through SAT prep.(CNN) The University of California system is considering making their own version of standardized tests (University of California). These are welcome changes but we must now give serious thought as a society into adapting existing measures or create new measures that truly allow a student to progress up the social ladder solely by the work they put. This is no easy task and definitely will lead to a few mistakes being made but ultimately if this means that we get one step closer to an education system that symbolizes meritocracy in its fundamental, and purest form this would be a step closer to a better world.
