There’s a tendency, when thinking about college admissions, to see Advanced Placement classes and high standardized test scores as a silver bullet – get a high SAT score and the world is at your fingertips.
Complete the trifecta with a high SAT score, challenging AP classes and an impressive GPA, and universities will come knocking at your door to get you to attend.
All of these measures we use for college admissions can be important and, at times, can be used as good indicators of a student’s potential to succeed in a university environment. But we run into problems when we take the necessity of comparison so far that we base a student’s potential entirely off of tests.
This is especially pertinent in light of last week’s announcement that the University of California will partner with the College Board’s “All In” program as a part of the UC’s Early Academic Outreach Program. The EAOP already engages in several meaningful and potentially impactful projects to promote the success of low-income high school students. However, its partnership with the College Board focuses too heavily on test scores and ultimately does not fit well with the EAOP’s intended purpose of outreach.
The EAOP’s partnership with the College Board is designed to encourage low-income students from minority backgrounds to take the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test and teach them about the test’s benefits. In addition, the College Board will provide high schools with information about “high-performing” students and then work with the high school to encourage those students to take more challenging coursework, like AP courses.
The goal of the partnership is commendable. But what’s troubling is the way that the program understands PSAT success as the determinant for high potential. This understanding of potential frames the PSAT as a way for students to stand out to their high school and motivate them to take more challenging classes. Using the PSAT as a barometer of success can overshadow the fact that PSAT results can be a product of the very disadvantages that this partnership hopes to rectify.
For example, if a wealthy student enrolls in the PSAT, it is much easier for them to hire a tutor or pay for a prep class than it would be for a low-income student. The results of the test can be just as much a product of someone’s socioeconomic status as it is a reflection of their intelligence or potential. It’s the same story with AP exams – they cost a fair amount of money and the prep books can be equally expensive, especially if a student plans to take multiple tests. This means that, in addition to struggling to afford the test, students from low-income backgrounds could perform worse than they otherwise should because they can’t afford the same preparation as other students.
More importantly, standardized testing is a very specific skill. Students who don’t have that skill won’t qualify as “high-potential” under this partnership. Even if there are other ways for these students to receive help through the EAOP, framing the test as an indicator of potential success can discourage students if they take the test unprepared and their score doesn’t reflect their actual ability.
If promoting the PSAT is the focus of the College Board’s “All In” program, then the UC should pursue other forms of outreach that aren’t grounded in identifying potential through test scores. Even putting more emphasis on things that the EAOP already does that help students prepare for standardized tests, like offering counseling services, free workshops or summer camps that get students to visit a college campus, would be better than allocating resources to the “All In” program.
These other EAOP programs deal more with the structural barriers that students face. Camps show students that they can attend college, and that universities are a place they want to be. Counseling services help students better understand their options when navigating a potentially confusing college admissions process.
But this specific program seems more like an advertisement for the College Board than a meaningful way to engage students. Endorsing a program that promotes testing for the sake of testing seems to distract from the good that the EAOP already does.
The UC may view this as just one tool in the EAOP’s tool belt, but it’s a tool that doesn’t serve much of a purpose.
Email Fife at tfife@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion.