Just when it might be time to throw away standardized testing, the SSATB is coming out with a new test. It will not be your regular Reading, Writing, and Math test, but a test that looks at non-cognitive skills. We will get to what non-cognitive skills are in a moment and start with the reasons behind this change.

The SSAT’s main purpose, simply speaking, is to help assess academic skills from reading to language and math. In some ways, it is a test of what you know and hopefully gives receiving schools a predictive idea of academic success, particularly first year grades and fit from an academic standpoint. The problem though is that secondary schools do more than develop academic minds, they also build character, in the formative years of teen-hood.

The Character Skills Assessment (CSA) will look at other areas of ability. CSA is in trial stages now and will roll out officially next Fall. So what does CSA test for: Teamwork, empathy and integrity, skills that schools look for in determining the kind in character they want to instill in their community. Since each school is unique and the community of that school is as well, schools will be looking for different attributes. Working with a team from the Think Tank on the Future of Assessment* and here are the questions they tried to answer:
“• How do we better understand our students’ many kinds of minds, and look for new ways standardized testing can reveal more about them?
• How should we support the professionalism and consistency of the admission process and consider carefully what will serve independent schools 10-20 years from now so we can better lead the profession forward?
• How do we pull together the best available thinking on broadening admission assessments and share that thinking widely?
• How might we test for important character attributes in the admission process?”*

So what are schools looking for? The G32, or the pilot schools, determined the following traits as important for success in independent schools: “resilience, grit, curiosity, growth mindset, empathy, integrity, motivation, self-efficacy, and self-control.” It seems that many of these align with the Harvard report and set of initiatives Making Caring Common.
The basis of the test or rather how students will be tested is through a Situation Judgment Test whereby students are presented with a “situation” and several response, which they rank their answers choose the best or worst choice depending on the question and situation. How they respond will give insight into revealing their traits as described above.
The CSA will not be required in the following years admission process. Again, it is just in the trial phase at the moment. The CSA will not replace the SSAT test but be used in addition to the test. So while the SSAT will provide pertinent information on academic skills, the CSA will help admission offices build the kind of class from a additional set of standards which meet, one supposes, the mission and philosophy of the school.
The enormous benefit of the CSA is that gives additional information to schools in the selection process. My hope is that the tests, both the SSAT and CSA have revolving questions that cannot be gamed. The ACT will, in the near future, go to a computer-based test where the questions change based on the ability of the student. The TOEFL had the same test quality when they launched the CBT many years ago.

The ability to assess students on different factors is important. When schools are building a class that sets the culture of the school, the CSA brings added value. And while standardized tests have limited predictive value on academic success, perhaps this is an additional piece of evidence to help enrollment managers build the best class they can and really help schools determine the “fit” of the student.

*From SSAT.org
*From Think Tank on the Future of Assessment

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It happened again but this time to ACT. On Saturday, ACT tests in Korea and Hong Kong were cancelled due to compromised tests. It goes without saying now that more students from these two countries are focusing on ACT given the changes to the rSAT. It was only a matter of time before test prep companies focused their methods on the ACT. The question is, can a company like ACT handle this new attention? What actions will ACT now take to ensure security of materials? With their new bandwidth of test takers, can they handle these new pressures?

The real problem is testing. With delayed scores, cancelled tests and the uproar, the current climate affects every student from this part of the world. As mentioned in previous posts, it seems quite clear that test results from this part of the world have limited validity. This includes SSAT, SAT, ACT and TOEFL. Test prep has cornered the market and either by illicit means or not, invalidated any test score. Very few students choose not to employ test prep companies to help them “prepare” for these tests. While it is easy to come to the conclusion that a student who used test prep can memorize well, I seriously doubt whether a test score predicts academic performance on the level of critical and analytical thinking required for entry to boarding school or university.

But then there is the problem with the reports coming out of the University of Iowa, of companies that help students get through their undergraduate programs. What is most discouraging about all of this is that seemingly education is for sale, rather earned. When I started working in this area, the world was a much more complacent place. There was not the pressure to get into Ivy League schools to the extent it seems today.  Sure, there was test prep, but families seemed more at ease with the value of education from a wider variety of schools. This is not just an Asian thing, it affects students everywhere and has created multi-million dollar industries to enhance a student’s look – from companies providing community service projects to essay writing to whatever it takes to “get in.”

To say the least, the ramifications of the trend the education system is moving toward discourage me. Even more worrisome are the college leaders who seemingly turn a blind eye to the issues confronting them, leaders who continue to push for higher test scores, creating new applications, allow agents to provide students to enhance enrollment numbers, the use of ranking, and on and on.

Several weeks ago I came to the conclusion that all is not well on the education front. Having worked in this field for over 30 years, it seems that the news only provides more discouraging information about the state of affairs. I also recognize and realize that the problem does not affect everyone. My concern is that the pendulum is moving in the wrong direction, and as it does so, it affects the students most. They have few alternatives and perceive the only way to be “successful” is to follow the trend.

Increasingly school counselors are also caught in the middle as the tidal wave of parents push for more, colleges look for more and the criteria for acceptance gets harder and harder for those select few schools deemed the Holy Grail of future success.

The other day during a conversation with a reporter, I was called a dinosaur with my antiquated views of admission. Both sadly and joyfully I nodded acceptance of this moniker. But I also realize that the dinosaurs of the admission world are slowly becoming extinct. The role of college counselor is changing. This can be seen directly with the advent of the Coalition application that cuts out the specific tasks of what counselors do. While I admit that the admission process is in drastic need of change, this move away from counselors, who know their students and work with them in close context and work to help them understand the value of education, has undermined everything we stand for and hope to achieve.

I jokingly, with an undertone of seriousness, tell my students that everything I teach them will get undone when they go home. While I know that there are a lot of people fighting the good fight to curb the trends we see, it is very much in the hands of leaders in admission to affect a course change back to being student centered. Unfortunately, the changes would leave the system in a new era. In a different world – schools would stop participating in ranking, go test optional, set specific academic expectations like the British, provide multiple options in the admission process like NYU, require Third Party interviews like IntialView, and be more specific in the qualifications for admission rather than stating the look at Holistic Review.

Idealistic? True! But something does need to change to radically alter the course we are currently on. Given the events of the last two years around testing and the more recent revelations of how some students are getting through university, I am wondering where the uproar is? If anything similar were to happen in the corporate world there would be a very different response at the injustices current practices seem to be taking. When will educators take and make a stand against these issues? Students are why we are supposedly working in this field, yet as counselors we are being incapacitated by the lofty leaders unaware, or at least not paying attention to what is happening in the trenches.

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So I had a student unwittingly tell me today that she is convinced that her SAT score from December will be significantly higher because her SAT tutor also took the December SAT and they compared their performance. Since my student is not the sharpest tack, I would assume the worst. But when I pointed out that one, her tutor should not be taking the test, two, her tutor is not allowed to take the test and three, that this very act is one of the reasons why October, November, and December scores are being delayed, she looked at me with the deer in headlights “I don’t get the connection" kind of look. Were she a sharper tack, I might be enormously concerned that untoward behavior was involved.

I point back to my musing from the November test. My frustration with the whole situation makes me want to scream. At the same time I, like many of my peers, are receiving emails from universities boasting the increase in applications for early rounds and I have to wonder, how many students are getting away with pumped up scores to get in to schools? I know my colleague and good friend Clay will attest, testing is vigorously ensured and security paramount. But my point is this  lets say that a student is coached to miss a certain number of questions to not raise their score to something perceived to be outlandish. I know students who know exactly how many questions they missed. 1+1=2. It does not seem out of the realm of possibility that a student could answer just enough to score higher but not enough to get flagged.

Back to my student. She wrote me the other day saying she wanted to apply to X university, one significantly beyond her academic and linguistic ability. When asked why, her reply was that her scores were going to be higher. When I pointed out that her grades will not satisfy X University and that her current SAT scores are abysmal, (yes I used that term), she just looked at me and smiled. I know that part of the reason for this request comes from mother.

And therein lies the main issue. A test based culture; focusing on the test regardless of the other criteria for acceptance such as grades, essays, leadership, etc., all which play a role in admission. Schools do not help by continuing to focus on ranking rather than stating the value of learning and outcomes at their institutions or by continuing to use a system that has not kept up with technology (CD players anyone, Internet and WeChat).

I know that huge majority of students do not cheat, but what is it that we are really engaged in? How many counselors work with students to find a fit school only to come back to the same list for virtually every student? With stars in their eyes, (did I say I have students, nor they parents nor their parents, understand the vast depth of university offerings in the US and the world. But their myopic viewpoint is focused on testing and ranking.

Enough from me I feel much better. Sort of.

 Hamilton Gregg is the founder of International Educational Consulting and has worked in education since 1985. He helps students and their families understand their personal and educational needs and find the right school to meet their requirements. If you are a student or parent who would like to ask Gregg a question on our blog, please email hsgregg45@gmail.com

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