COLLEGE ENTRANCE EXAMS RAISE QUESTIONS

About a fifth of U.S. colleges and universities do not require the SAT or ACT for some or all high school applicants, a survey released Wednesday found, reflecting the latest assaults on admissions tests.

FairTest, a Cambridge, Mass., group that advocates less reliance on testing, said it counted 383 out of 1,788 four-year schools that do not want entrance exams at all or that sometimes exempt applicants, say for a high class rank or great grades.

Most four-year schools in the Midwest use the ACT as an entrance exam for high school students.

Dr. Pauline Fox, vice-president for administration and enrollment management at Southeast Missouri State University, said the school uses a combination of high school rank and scores on the ACT exam in considering admissions for high school students.

However, Fox said, the exam is not a good indicator of how well students who have been out of high school for several years will perform at the collegiate level. For that reason, those students are tested to determine placement in various courses rather than eligibility for college.

"Nontraditional students have experiences in so many ways, they really have so much to offer that would not be measured based on their performance on the ACT," Fox said.

"We really have found that for nontraditional students truly starting as freshmen, test scores are not good at all for predicting how well they will do,"

The last FairTest count, three years ago, identified 280 test-optional schools. The total rose for two reasons: More colleges dropped the exams, and others clarified their admissions rules.

The FairTest survey follows last month's call from University of California President Richard Atkinson to ditch the SAT admission requirement for his system's eight undergraduate campuses, including Berkeley and UCLA. Atkinson wants students judged by what they learned, not how they scored.

Last June, elite Mount Holyoke College declared applicants no longer need submit scores from the SAT test of reasoning.

Not going away

But while some educators no longer see the SAT and ACT as master keys to the ivory tower, the exams aren't going away.

Even as some colleges abandon entrance tests, others are adopting or reinstating them. Or they're simply giving test scores less weight, asking instead for essays, references and extra-curriculars -- in current jargon, "holistic" applications.

Fox said Southeast's admission standards are "moderately selective", meaning entrance is granted or denied based upon class rank and ACT scores. Because of the admissions process, it would be difficult for the university to drop usage of the entrance exam.

In any event, the university would not move away from using the ACT as admissions criteria without a decree from the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education.

"The coordinating board really is a part of the driving force behind our requiring high school students to take the ACT," Fox said. "Any changes we would make would have to originate with the coordinate board."

The nonprofit College Board, which owns the SAT, notes the vast majority of colleges and universities still demand a test score for applicants recently out of high school -- either the SAT I reasoning test, or the ACT achievement test. (There's also a less-requested SAT II subject test.)

Each year, 2 million high school students take the SAT I and 1.8 million the ACT. An unknown number take both.

The tests were established decades ago by colleges and universities seeking a standard gauge of ability. Meant only as a guide, they're designed to help predict a prospect's likely success freshman year, along with grades and other factors.

Yet SAT and ACT scores loom large, both in admissions and the school ratings published in college guides.

"Common yardstick"

Critics have long attacked the tests as unfair, chiefly because whites tend to do better than other groups. Many reasons are offered family income and education, school quality, courses taken, access to tutors and test-prep courses.

Fox said entrance exams like the ACT are an easy way to predict how well a student will do in college. However, because the ACT is a multiple choice exam and because some students are not good test-takers, the test may be unfair for some students.

Gaston Caperton, who runs the New York-based College Board, has summed up the disparities as "unfairness in our educational system," while still defending the SAT as a "common yardstick" encouraging "high achievement." ACT Inc. in Iowa City, Iowa, takes a similar position.

Even before Mount Holyoke made the SAT optional, the score was just 10 percent of its admissions criteria. "Never a deal breaker," said Jane Brown, dean of enrollment at the women's college in South Hadley, Mass.

Lafayette College, meanwhile, made the SAT optional for five years only to require it again, starting with students entering the Easton, Penn., campus in 2000.

Like Mount Holyoke, Lafayette wanted to show its students are more than a test score. It also hoped to attract high achievers with "less-imposing SATs," said Barry McCarty, dean of enrollment. Instead, the task of identifying strong candidates got a little tougher.

The City University of New York, once famous for its open admissions, began requiring SAT scores to enter bachelor programs in 1999. Too many youngsters arrived unprepared for college, figuring they could always go to CUNY.

Less emphasis on the SAT or ACT also can mean more chores for applicants.

Since 1990, Lewis & Clark College has made test scores optional -- provided the student furnishes a stack of graded writing assignments and teachers' recommendations.

At the University of Texas at Austin, most applicants must not only submit test scores, but two essays, a resume of achievement, and work, service and education history.