The panel addressed the unreliability of the test, how a new SAT policy would affect Amherst's applicant pool, whether admissions officers needed the SAT, benefits that its omission would engender for American higher education and how the change would impact the College's U.S. News & World Report rankings.
"I wanted to let students know about the discussion I was starting with the Faculty Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid about doing research on Amherst's use of the SAT in admissions and also to hear what other students thought about my argument," said Irwin. Irwin prefaced his presentation by tackling what he sees as the SAT's biases-the gender gap, the socioeconomic gap, the racial gap and stereotype threat. Irwin noted that a 1994 ETS study found a 34-point gap in SAT scores between women and men with the same grades, in the same college courses. A federal judge ruled certain SAT-based merit scholarships discriminatory due to this gender difference.
According to Irwin, the socioeconomic gap is also well-documented, with a 300-point disparity between the lowest income (below $10,000) and the highest income (above $100,000) brackets-high-income students are usually advantaged by SAT coaching. As for the racial gap, Irwin mentioned that there is a racial score differential decreasing by a third if you look at the SAT's "hard questions."
Irwin also addressed stereotype threat, the risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one's group as self-characteristic. The average African American student scores 200 points lower than a Caucasian student does. According to stereotype-threat theory, when given a test, black students perform worse when informed that it is a test of aptitude-a personal reflection on their intelligence as opposed to a test of skills and effort. White students score the same regardless of what they are told.
Administrators say that they recognize that the SAT is not an objective test, but that they can interpret the results accurately," said Irwin, referring to a recent Mt. Holyoke study. In the study, admissions officers looked at applications of the same students with their SAT scores included or excluded while yielding roughly the same decisions. Nine out of 10 times, the same students were admitted. Two hundred schools have deemed the SAT optional in their admissions policies, with liberal arts colleges Mt. Holyoke, Bates and Bowdoin leading the pack.
Admissions officers need a tool to level the playing field, but whether the SAT fulfills that role is controversial. "Administrators say the SAT is a factor that can't be falsified, but that argument doesn't hold much water," Irwin charged. "Cheating on the SAT is more common than falsifying other parts of the application. There's a growing phenomenon of parents bribing doctors to certify their kids as learning disabled, and the College Board doesn't tell who took the test with extra time." There is also evidence that others have beat the system by sending proxies to take the tests for them, comparing answers during the breaks and returning to the previous sections.
Another problem Irwin has with the test is that it is administered by a corporation. "There was a huge mess up in scores this year, with some scores off by 450 points due to mistakes in grading, right at the time the colleges needed them," said Irwin. Irwin went on to provide reasons why Amherst should make the SAT optional-it would encourage qualified applicants with low scores, attract students who like Amherst's stance, show Amherst's social responsibility to speak out or against America's love affair with standardized tests and rankings and increase diversity. "The SAT requirement discourages low scorers, even if they're highly qualified for Amherst," he said. "College counselors and parents may say, 'No way you can get into Amherst,' or students may self-select out."
When Bates made the SAT optional at a time when other schools were losing applicants, its applicant pool increased by a third. Minority applications increased by half and internationals doubled. While the accepted students who didn't submit SAT scores were later found to have been, on average, 160 points lower, their freshman GPA was only 0.05 lower, a small number that the admissions office had predicted.
The second reason Irwin provided was that no other school at the top of the U.S. News rankings have made the SATs optional. "Students who are discouraged from applying to all of these elite schools would be attracted to Amherst," he said.
Irwin's third reason was that Amherst is responsible for speaking out on how the SAT is used in admissions by asking what the SATs measure. "This would have a large impact on people's perceptions of the SAT," said Irwin. "This would be a big statement that Amherst College makes, showing that we don't have faith in the test."
The fourth benefit that Irwin listed was that there would be an increase of diversity. "People say that this would lower our standards. The right attitude is to see that the SAT is not an objective standard. The test is biased against the groups we're targeting, so of course their scores will be lower."
Woglom suggested that Amherst should speak out against the test and say what else they're looking for to encourage students. "Getting the admissions decision right is important. Wrong decisions affect teaching. I don't call [Dean of Admission and Financial Aid] Tom Parker and say, 'This is a lousy class.' I have to adjust. Some students make the mistake of trying to get into the best college they can," said Woglom. "If you look at our class of '05, 40 percent scored below 700 on math, over the 93rd percentile. We're not talking about stupid people. But among that group, only 13 percent took Math 5, 6, or 11. It's hard to compete with people there."
"When students give up, it's demoralizing. I feel a tremendous sense of failure. If using the SAT avoids that, I'm all for it," said Woglom.
Victoria Seghal '08 voiced her concerns on making the SAT optional. "[In the admissions office] there's a sticker on the folders with the name and SAT score, then everything else is inside. There are more people who have 4.0 GPAs from grade inflation than people with high SAT scores. People who apply to super-elite schools take pride in SAT scores, so wouldn't applicants from the upper crust look down on Amherst as a safety school?" Seghal asked.
Mike Simmons '06 praised Irwin's presentation, stating that the SAT is an unreliable indicator of a student's intellectual potential. "Even many of those attending the talk who support the SAT agreed that many pay exorbitant sums for prep courses that teach them the mechanical ways to beat the SAT, not anything about intellectual material," he said.
Simmons also suggested alternatives to the SAT. "I personally believe that Amherst College can locate other variables to measure one's intellectual capacity," he said. "Grades alone can't do that, but the College might opt to create its own test, or look at recent graded work of an applicant. I hope the College will seriously consider students' opinions on this topic next year and weigh alternatives to the SAT. The Faculty-student Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid is an appropriate origin point to begin such discussions."