Chances are, if you have children in high school, or had children in high school, or work in a school system, you have heard the students stress over the ACT standardized test.
In their minds, understandably, they think a bad, or not good enough, ACT score will derail their chances of getting accepted to some colleges.
The whole construct of accepting students based on one test score has been debated more and more recently, but one Illinois University will make a milestone by getting rid of the ACT requirement that unfairly discriminates based on one performance.
The University of Chicago is becoming the first major research university to stop requiring American undergraduate applicants to submit ACT or SAT scores, according to an Associated Press story from June 14. Some liberal arts colleges have also done this.
Now the initiative, which includes other items to help make school more accessible for students, is not set to start until 2023, but at least the university is recognizing that placing the value of a student on one test performance is not fair.
Some students have test anxiety. “Well if they have test anxiety on one high school test, how would they ever succeed in college?”
One test that has different questions every year is harder to study for than a test that you have had five weeks of notes in.
