College Board plans SAT I improvements

The College Board plans to make major changes to the SAT I to ward off growing criticism of the standardized reasoning test taken by two million high school students each year.

Like thousands of other colleges and universities, the University requires prospective students to submit SAT I scores in addition to three SAT II subject test scores with their applications. Students may take the ACT, a competing test, instead of the SAT I if other schools they are applying to only accept the ACT.

The SAT has been criticized for testing too few abilities, not reflecting what is learned in the classroom and being biased against some economic and racial groups.

Dean of Admission Fred Hargadon said yesterday that he did not know what to make of the proposals to change the SAT.

Though not opposing reforms, Hargadon said he found value in a "test that at least attempts to get at a student's capacity . . . that is not dependent on the quality or lack thereof of the school circumstance[s]."

The SAT II subjects tests already claim to measure better what is learned in the classroom, he said, while also expressing "a high degree of skepticism about the possibility of grading on a national basis a writing sample for over a million students a year."

Hargadon said he is concerned about trying to design a test that meets everyone's needs. "A test is a test," he said.

The trustees of the College Board authorized the organization's president Gaston Caperton and his staff last week to discuss potential SAT reforms with colleges and high schools, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

The trustees will vote in June on recommended changes, which will take effect no earlier than 2006.

Michael Reid, assistant to Chiara Coletti, the vice president of public affairs at the College Board, confirmed that the organization is looking into reforming the SAT. He emphasized that the current investigation is "preliminary."

Caperton and Coletti were unavailable for comment yesterday.

Drastic changes in the SAT are unlikely, Caperton said in The New York Times.

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"We're not creating a whole new test; we're making some improvements," he said. "I would be very surprised if more than half the test changed. Most of it will be similar to what's been on there in the past."

Changes could include adding a writing component to the exam, eliminating the analogy questions and expanding the math section to include more sophisticated subjects than elementary algebra. The current three-hour SAT I consists of verbal and math multiple-choice questions and several fill-in math questions.

The proposal to change the SAT may be a reaction to last year's call by University of California president Richard Atkinson to eliminate its SAT requirement. With about 178,000 students, UC is the SAT's biggest source of test-takers.

In January, a UC faculty committee recommended that the university develop a test that better assesses what Californians learn in the classroom. Though it faces criticism within the university, the option of implementing a new test will be voted on this summer and, if accepted, would be in place by 2006.

Christina Perez, an advocate at FairTest, a Massachusetts-based group that opposes the use of the SAT for admissions purposes, dismissed the College Board's proposal.

"The proposed changes to the SAT will do little to improve the exam," Perez said. "They're merely a reaction to market demand. The College Board is scrambling to protect its product."

Prominent colleges which recently have stopped requiring applicants to submit SAT I scores include Bates, Bowdoin and Mount Holyoke.

Earlier this year, the College Board ended the Score Choice option for the SAT II subject tests. Starting in October, the scores of all new tests taken by students will be reported to colleges.