College Board instates new national options for SAT reporting

The SAT Reasoning Test, a primary part of college admissions, plans to introduce a new option for students to report their scores.

The College Board, the organization that owns and develops the exam, has announced that students will now be able to select and report scores from their best sittings to colleges. The exam is made up of three parts, which are scored independently. Test takers will now be able to pick their best three scores and report them to colleges in one grouping.

Though this is a potentially significant and wide-reaching change, Dr. John Latting, Hopkins's dean of Undergraduate Admissions, claimed that the new College Board policy will not radically alter admissions at Hopkins.

"At one level it won't make a big difference. In a sense, our policy all along has dovetailed with this approach the College Board is taking. We've always focused on the highest sub score within the SAT, and we pull scores from different test dates when we look at the record of a student," Latting said.

The College Board will still allow schools to post their specific SAT policies - Hopkins's official policy, for example, still asks for the submission of all scores from all test dates - but the organization will not require that students actually comply with these guidelines when submitting scores.

"The College Board has given us the opportunity to state what our policy is on this, and we've said we want to receive all test scores and then put together the highest scores from that," Latting said. "Right now it's all in the hands of the students. When prospective students go to report their scores to a school (online), they can still bring up the school's policy, but the College Board will not force a student to comply with a policy that asks for all scores."

Unlike previous, more defined changes to the SAT, like the recent conversion of the test to a 2,400 score format, this new policy still leaves many questions unanswered, about both its actual implementation and how much relevant information will be lost in the transfer of scores from students to universities.

For example, colleges will no longer have any way of knowing whether or not a student is complying with testing policies in regard to the number of scores submitted, Latting said.

We don't really know for sure yet how this will work in a practical sense - this is the one question we continue to have. We won't know if a student is complying with the policy or not since students now have the option to send only their best scores and keep hidden how many times they have sat for the test," he said.

Dean Latting did leave open the possibility that, with enough opposition from educational institutions, this policy could be modified.

"The College Board tends to be responsive. They respond to their constituencies, and the two big ones are the colleges and the public," he said.

Latting explained that the College Board's decision was not provoked by requests from colleges.

"What remains to be seen is what the reaction will be from people on the college or university side, and mostly I think it's not very positive," he said. "People are unhappy about this, I think that's fair to say."

Sophomore Mike Maiale voiced his opposition to the new format, which he feels can easily be taken advantage of.

"I don't really like the idea of choosing different scores, especially how you can select individual section scores. Now you can go into the test, sit down and focus on one section and then just take a nap through the rest of it. This eliminates the whole idea of test taking stamina," he said. "The college can say right now they look at the best scores, but they can see if you did something like that."

Regardless of the long-term effects of the policy, the University is prepared to move forward and continue accepting SAT applications in much the same way. "We'll see what level of compliance there is and how we'll react to it," Latting said.

The new policy renews the question of whether or not score reporting policies unfairly aid economically advantaged students because the cost of taking the test may make it impossible for less advantaged students to take the test more than once. Though this is not a new debate, this option has led many critics to complain that wealthier students, who can afford to take the test multiple times, are now even better off relative to poorer students.

This is a risk, according to Dean Latting.

"If the SAT were given once a year and everyone just got geared up and took it once, the playing field would be more level there, but it's given six times a year. So yes, I share with other people in admissions and in education the concern that students will be able to keep private how many times they are taking the exam," he said.

"At least up to now you had to be honest about it. There was nothing stopping you from taking it every time you could, but you had to admit that that was your strategy. That's fine; we just liked to know that information. We were always taking the highest score anyway."

Next year will not be the first time when Hopkins will be home to class levels judged under different SAT criteria - current seniors and (some) juniors were took the old 1,600-score test. But while the overall effects on undergraduate admissions will likely be minimal, the controversial issues surrounding college entrance examinations will remain relevant.

This would no longer be the case, now that future applicants can conceal repetitious SAT sittings.