Which of the following concepts best complements the term “cup”?
A. Saucer
B. Glass
C. Floor
If you answered “B,” glass, you understand that “cup” and “glass” are synonyms for drinking vessels.
If you answered “C,” floor, you are cunning indeed. You understand that “cup” and “floor” hold people or things that otherwise would not have support.
If you answered “A,” saucer, you are probably from a middle- or upper-middle-class socio-economic background and you understand that “cup and saucer” is the best answer because your Aunt Ada insisted that the two be used together when your family visited her suburban, Midwestern home each summer. You also will outperform individuals from lower-income homes on analogies tests like the Scholastic Assessment Test this spring.
The sample question is patently flawed, of course. While it purports to measure intellectual acumen, the question actually measures social status, rhetorical sensitivity and the efforts of a strong-willed aunt. It is an example of the type of racism, classism and sexism that critics of the SAT and other standardized college admissions assessments find in nearly every test that uses analogies to test analytical thinking skills. Thankfully, the SAT does not contain such obnoxious entries. Their assessment specialists have tended to these problems. The SAT does, however, tend to favor students from upper- or upper-middle-class white communities. These are the people more likely to have Aunt Adas in their lives.
“But the questions they ask on the SAT are impossible,” high school juniors cry in near unison each spring. “There’s no way you can study for that exam and it has nothing to do with what we learn in school.”
They’re right. But that is the point of an aptitude test. Can the test-taker move from the familiar material covered in the classroom to the unfamiliar? From the concrete to the abstract? It really isn’t about what you learned, after all. It’s about how you learn and how you think.
It was until late last month when the president of the College Board–the Princeton, N.J., organization that owns the exam formerly known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test–announced the board’s plan to revamp SAT to better reflect what prospective college students are actually studying in their high school classrooms. The move is ill advised despite its good intentions. As a college faculty member and a former administrator, I understand that it is the faculty who have entrusted the admissions officers at their particular institution with the task of identifying, recruiting and enrolling the incoming class of students. Philosophically, the admissions task is essentially a faculty responsibility that has been delegated to professional support personnel.
In the world of college admissions officers, SAT dominates. More students submit scores from SAT as part of their admissions dossier than any other single document except, perhaps, the high school transcript.
The typical application for admissions–and there are many regional, institutional, and individual variations to be sure–includes an admissions application form, an optional essay and a reference form or two completed by an adult familiar with the applicant’s character and scholastic achievements.
Colleges also require a copy of the student’s prior academic record. The thinking is that past performance in the classroom is a predictor of future performance in the classroom. The academic record is historically in the form of a high school transcript, a listing of courses taken and grades earned. But even this is changing.
Why? One reason is that an A average at one school is very different from an A average from another school. Teachers, curriculum, culture and educational objectives are so divergent as to make a quantitative measure (cumulative grade point average of 3.7 on a 4.0 scale; ranking 120 in a class of 210) meaningless.
Another reason for the changing view of high school transcripts is the transformation of the home-schooling movement from “a group of kindly mountain-folk who grew their own granola,” as one colleague calls the movement’s pioneers, into a mainstream movement of overachieving people who are pushing, pulling and otherwise opening educational doors for their children.
Today, home-school students and others are presenting portfolios of their learning experiences in lieu of actual transcripts.
Some take advantage of information technology to demonstrate their learning outcomes. It used to be a novelty to receive a video resume from applicants. Today’s students submit CD-based portfolios that include performances, carefully edited tete-a-tete with off-screen interviewers, digital tours of law offices and medical clinics where the student volunteered (and learned civics, history, science and mathematics).
So application forms are rather benign and transcripts are evolving and sometimes meaningless. The one “neutral” or “objective” measure of a student’s aptitude for the college experience is the college admissions test. The SAT score is–for the time being–an important part of the student’s dossier. But last month’s announcement signals the meaningful end of the SAT’s traditional role in the admissions process. The critics have won; SAT will be less useful as part of the materials submitted by the applicant. Beginning with the class of 2006, it will supply a measure of what the student learned in the classroom.
Parents, professionals and college prospects must all understand this: From a college professor’s perspective, Aunt Ada is not the issue in college admissions. If she used to be, she shouldn’t have been. Prospective students’ success in college, however, can only be predicted by a review of their entire profile–not just their classroom preparation.
Herein is the problem. College and university administrators know that the largest part of an education takes place outside of the classroom. The faculty, along with its staff of support personnel–the residence hall supervisors, the college nurse, the student union leadership, the dean of the chapel, the athletic director and the director of library services–facilitate the educational experience. We do this together because we know that an education that lasts is much less likely to take place in the classroom than it is in the dorms, the health center, the performing arts center, the chapel, the gymnasium and the library.
Thus the SAT purported to give us a good idea–not of a person’s achievements, but of a person’s possibilities; not of a student’s record in the high school classroom, but in life’s classroom.
The admissions test that functions as a hurdle to college entry also is a concern of critics. According to this fear, students who might otherwise succeed in college are being denied admission. That would really be a tragedy, but I contend we don’t do this at all. College admissions committees don’t deny admission to students based on their SAT scores or any other single measurement that the institution believes to be important. We look for every excuse in the world to admit a student who would benefit from our college.
Let’s be clear about this: Rather than denying admission to students because of poor test scores, colleges regularly accept students they strongly suspect will not succeed in college. These students are “given a chance” in the collegiate environment by enrolling in developmental courses that don’t count toward an academic degree program.
So it goes in today’s educational environment. Education is viewed as a life-long activity that is not bound to the campus or to the classroom. We professors want to have a hand in educating students who can move from context to context. We seek information about the student from their high school teachers and mentors. We do all this, but in 2006 when the revamped SAT is kicked off, we will need another means to measure those aptitudes.
Maybe a note from Aunt Ada will do.
