Wake Forest

The Test Optional Alternative

The Test Optional Alternative

While many parents and students are still wrestling with the interchangeability of the ACT and the SAT; the National Association of College Admissions Counselors (NACAC) released a study in February 2014 showing there is no perceptible difference in academic performance between students who do and do not submit ACT or SAT scores.

Such a statement almost seems blasphemous in the realm of college admissions, yet the evidence was culled from a study of over 123,000 students across 33 colleges with test optional policies.

SAT in Amherst, Massachusetts for a mere $4,495

SAT in Amherst, Massachusetts for a mere $4,495

When Henry Chauncey launched the Educational Testing Service (ETS) in 1947, which was and still is today, the exclusive test creation service for the College Board’s SAT, he was firmly convinced that he and his brilliant social engineers would revolutionize student assessment.

Chauncey believed that the creation of a standardized test would help sort out the most promising students, and would be “the moral equivalent of religion but based on reason and science rather than on sentiments and tradition.” (p. 68-69 The Big Test, Nicholas Lemann, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2000)