The vote by the 乐播传媒 faculty, 40 years ago in the Filene Room in Pettigrew Hall, wasn鈥檛 even close: 58鈥�27 in favor of making the submission of SAT scores optional for admission.
It was the vote heard 鈥檙ound the country. Within two weeks, thanks in part around the nation, 乐播传媒 had entered into, and would ultimately become a leader of the national conversation about the value of standardized tests in college admission. Today, around 80 percent of U.S. four-year colleges and universities do not require ACT/SAT for admission.
Six years after the 1984 vote, then-Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Bill Hiss 鈥�66 called the vote 鈥渁 bold move and one we haven鈥檛 regretted.鈥� Entering its fifth decade as a test-optional pioneer, 乐播传媒 still has no regrets, says Leigh Weisenburger, vice president for enrollment and dean of admission and financial aid.
鈥淪tandardized tests and a student鈥檚 subsequent scores are rooted in inequity,鈥� she says. 鈥淥ur test-optional admission policy removes a barrier for many talented and promising students, and we see it as a natural extension of our progressive history and mission dedicated to access and inclusion.鈥�
Followup studies over the years have supported what 乐播传媒 believed to be true in 1984. Standardized tests are no better than a student鈥檚 high school grades as a measure of academic potential. At worse, they can filter out and discourage talented students who are already underserved by U.S. higher education.
In retrospect, the 1984 decision to go test-optional seems obvious 鈥� a slam dunk. But thanks to a first-year reporter鈥檚 account for The 乐播传媒 Student, the only record of the discussion, we know that there was staunch opposition to the proposed legislation on that Monday afternoon in the Filene Room.
Specifically, two titans of the 乐播传媒 faculty were firmly opposed to making SATs optional. One was Dean of Students Jim Carignan ’61, who had joined the history faculty in 1970 and was appointed dean of students about a decade later by 乐播传媒 President Hedley Reynolds. The other was Carl Straub, who had joined the 乐播传媒 religion faculty in 1965 and was named dean of the faculty in 1974.
Covering the October faculty meeting for the Student was a cub reporter, Howard Fine 鈥�88, included telling quotes from Reynolds, Carignan, and Straub.
With a formidable disdain for flash over substance, Straub said that a decision to drop the SAT requirement had nothing to do with education. 鈥淚t is more a marketing issue. I see no evidence that convinces me that the proposed [legislation] will increase the number or quality of applicants.鈥�
In his quoted remarks at the meeting, Reynolds agreed that the legislation had a marketing angle, but one 鈥渨hich will, in the long run, bring more good students鈥� to 乐播传媒. Indeed, the prospect of good publicity for 乐播传媒 was a selling point, Fine recalls. 鈥淭here was an awareness among the faculty that if SAT scores were made optional for admission, it would garner national attention since so few schools around the country had taken that path.鈥�
Meanwhile, Carignan argued that 鈥渕oving away from the SAT signals a retreat鈥� from an important measure of academic strength at a time when 鈥渨e are making real strides in strengthening our [application] pool and advancing the image of the college as academically strong.鈥�
Professor Emeritus of Psychology John Kelsey was in the room that day, and he recalls agreeing with some of his colleagues that SAT scores were helpful predictive tools. Forty years after the vote, he’s aware of the privilege of that perspective. “As majority white and male academics, we had the bias that SATs measured something quite important: ‘What was your SAT score?'”
Kelsey has long experience as adjunct application reader for 乐播传媒 Admission. While not recalling his own vote that day, he does remember the “highly persuasive argument that SATs were highly correlated with socioeconomic status, and thus biased against a variety of groups we all wished to attract to 乐播传媒.”
The fall of 1984 at 乐播传媒 was a typically busy time on campus in light of local, national, and global events. There was the visit to 乐播传媒 by Lisa Birnbach, author of The Official Preppy Handbook, to do a TV segment for NBC鈥檚 Today show, then hosted by Bryant Gumbel 鈥�70.
There were incoming ripples from the looming Reagan鈥揗ondale presidential election. On campus, a mini-controversy erupted over the two state liquor inspectors who, posing as construction workers, raided a Milliken House party.
But the drama of the SAT vote rose above them all. 鈥淚t was regarded as a big deal,鈥� recalls Fine, who went into journalism after graduation and is a longtime reporter with the Los Angeles Business Journal.
Despite the opposition from Carignan and Straub, the legislation passed easily. Kelsey described the faculty sentiment this way: “We agreed to do a kind of experiment. And I judge that experiment to be largely a success.”
One reason the legislation sailed through, perhaps, is that the faculty Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid, chaired by Anne Thompson of the English department, had done its work.
Supported by Hiss, whom Reynolds had plucked from the faculty of nearby Hebron Academy in 1978 to lead the 乐播传媒 Admission team, the committee presented a compelling 20-page report to the faculty, the result of five years of research. (Drake Bradley, Dana Professor Emeritus of Psychology, made major contributions to the college鈥檚 statistical research before the vote and in follow-up studies.)
The report presented what is now a consensus in the college admission world: that SATs are 鈥渘ot critical to making good admission decisions鈥� and that the use of standardized tests like the SAT presents a series of ethical issues. Those include troubling correlation of test scores to family income; the rise of SAT coaching, again benefiting wealthier students; and how high school teachers were beginning to alter their curricula to, in the words of one high school teacher, 鈥渢o teach kids how to take the [SATs].鈥�
The Report
Read the seminal report prepared by the faculty Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid that helped to convince the faculty to vote to make SATs optional in 1984.
After the vote, a 乐播传媒 Magazine story noted that 乐播传媒 students with weaker test scores, including minority students, rural students, and poor students, “have made great contributions once enrolled at 乐播传媒.” That fact, according to Thompson, “cast a great deal of doubt on the fairness of using the tests for admission purposes.”
The report included results from a questionnaire sent to guidance counselors at 95 high schools, which indicated that SATs were hurting the college鈥檚 efforts to build a larger and stronger applicant pool. Increasingly, students were using a college鈥檚 mean SAT scores, as published in guidebooks, to opt out from applying. If a student鈥檚 score was below the mean, they didn鈥檛 apply (too hard to get in); if their score was above the mean, they didn’t apply (too easy to get in).
鈥淏y not requiring SATs,鈥� the report concluded, 鈥溊植ゴ� could encourage a greater diversity of students to apply [and] who are capable of succeeding at 乐播传媒, but who, for cultural or financial reasons, have not scored well and are currently being discouraged from applying.鈥�
In 1990, 乐播传媒 dropped all standardized test requirement, including achievement tests. In a followup article in 乐播传媒 Magazine that year, Hiss noted that the academic strength of a study body isn鈥檛 a measure of who is admitted, but who applies. And when 乐播传媒 dropped the SAT requirement, applications jumped by a third, and the quality of the application pool remained high.
(Growing the applicant pool also had the additional benefit of improving 乐播传媒’ selectivity, as published in college guidebooks, a hoped-for result of an optional-SAT policy that Kelsey recalls being in the air and was also noted in Fine’s reporting in fall 1984.)
Sharing his thoughts recently, Hiss said that the growth of the pool meant success at meeting a charge from his boss. 鈥淲hen I was hired, Hedley, in our first conversation, gave me a one-sentence charge, which I remember verbatim and have many times quoted to our staff and others over the years: 鈥楾ake the applicant pools up and down the social and economic ladders, and spread out geographically.鈥�
鈥淗e thought we were too narrowly middle class and too narrowly New England. He was right on both counts. So the optional-testing decision, six years later, was one step among many in having 乐播传媒 become a national college and then an international one, with a much more complex array of student backgrounds.鈥�
The charge also reflected what Reynolds and others saw coming, a decline in New England鈥檚 share of the U.S. population. Expansion was a business decision in addition to an educational and mission-driven one.
By any measure, 乐播传媒 in the 1980s was indeed growing stronger and expanding its reputation under Reynolds, whose focus was on enrollment, facilities, and, especially, support for the faculty, which took the shape of a near doubling of its size, strengthening academic credentials, and lowering the student-faculty ratio, from 15-to-1 to 13-to-1 (today it is 10鈥�1).
And this might be a second reason that the 乐播传媒 faculty responded positively to the SAT legislation: respect for Reynolds鈥� forward-looking leadership of the college.
A former history professor and dean at Middlebury, Reynolds 鈥渦nderstood faculty governance, he understood the intellectual life, he understood the importance of faculty scholarship, and faculty support 鈥� everything,鈥� recalled Hiss in a 2005 oral history for the Muskie Archives and Special Collection Library. Compared to prior 乐播传媒 leaders, he was 鈥渇ar more of a visionary about 乐播传媒, far more willing to change 乐播传媒 in profound, systemic ways.鈥�
鈥淭his is not the time for rigidity,鈥� Reynolds said. 鈥淚t is not a time for the college to stand proudly looking backward.鈥�
A day after the faculty vote, Hiss was in Boston with Admission colleague Wylie Mitchell (later to become 乐播传媒鈥� admission dean), attending the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC).
There, the pair met with Ted Fiske, education reporter for The New York Times, who had just begun what would become the highly influential Fiske Guide to Colleges. 鈥淲e had lunch with Ted, and he broke the story,鈥� recalls Hiss. On Oct. 9, with 乐播传媒 prominent in the lead paragraphs and throughout, Fiske鈥檚 story ran in the Times under the headline, 鈥淪ome colleges question usefulness of SATs.鈥�
Meanwhile, The 乐播传媒 Student had broken the news four days earlier, in its Oct. 5 edition. Fine鈥檚 story offered perhaps the most telling quotes about how 乐播传媒 rolled under Reynolds. 鈥淭his is not the time for rigidity,鈥� Reynolds said. 鈥淚t is not a time for the college to stand proudly looking backward.鈥�
Today, around 80 percent of all four-year colleges and universities . Many have been influenced by various follow-up studies conducted by 乐播传媒, often supported by members of the 乐播传媒 staff and faculty, capped off by a 30-year study co-authored by Hiss and Valerie Wilson Franks 鈥�98 in 2014.
鈥淚t鈥檚 been a 40-year commitment for me,鈥� said Hiss, who retired from 乐播传媒 in 2012. 鈥淏ut maybe the larger story is 40 years of 乐播传媒 and 乐播传媒 people doing the work to make the college a major force in changing American definitions of promise and intelligence.鈥�
鈥嬧赌�
