SAT Wars: The Case for Test-Optional College Admissions

Joseph A. Soares

apr, 2015 · Teachers College Press

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“This book is an important contribution to the reassessment of the use of standardized tests in college admissions. . . . Colleges that are well-prepared for a discussion about standardized admission tests will understand how their research aligns with the information provided in this publication”
—David Hawkins, National Association for College Admission Counseling

What can a college admissions officer safely predict about the future of a 17-year-old? Are the best and the brightest students the ones who can check off the most correct boxes on a multiple-choice exam? Or are there better ways of measuring ability and promise? In this penetrating and revealing look at high-stakes standardized admissions tests, Joseph Soares demonstrates the far-reaching and mostly negative impact of the tests on American life and calls for nothing less than a national policy change.

SAT Wars presents a roadmap for rethinking college admissions that moves us past the statistically weak and socially divisive SAT/ACT. The author advocates for evaluation tools with a greater focus on what youth actually accomplish in high school as a more reliable indicator of qualities that really matter in one’s life and to one’s ability to contribute to society. This up-to-date book features contributions by well-known experts, including a piece from Daniel Golden, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in the Wall Street Journal on admissions, and a chapter on alternative tests from Robert Sternberg, who is the world’s most-cited living authority on educational research.

As we continue to debate the use and misuse of standardized testing, SAT Wars will be important reading for a wide audience, including college administrators and faculty, high school guidance counselors, education journalists, and parents.

Book Features:

An authoritative combination of voices, including college presidents, admissions deans, scholars from economics, history, and sociology, and test-industry participants. New information on the racial and gender biases built into the SAT. The only independent case studies of the limitations of the new SAT.A step-by-step guide on how college admissions can go test-optional. Alternative tests to SAT/ACT developed by Robert Sternberg.

Contributors: Martha Allman • Richard C. Atkinson • Chang Young Chung • Christopher Cornwell • John Douglas • Thomas J. Espenshade • Saul Geiser • Daniel Golden • David Hawkins • John Latting • Charles Murray • David B. Mustard • Kevin Rask • Jay Rosner • Chole Melissa Rothstein • Robert Schaeffer • Robert J. Sternberg • Jill Tiefenthaler • Jessica Van Parys • Teresa Wonnell

Joseph A. Soares is Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.