Widely accepted as university qualifying exams, these tests claim to forecast students' ability to handle college-level work.
What determines college competence? For nearly a century now, the ACT and SAT have sought to answer this question for higher education institutions across the U.S. As an early alternative to the intelligence quotient exams of late 19th Century America, these tests were quickly accepted as the standard college assessment exams. However, in recent years, the testing paradigm has begun to change. More and more colleges are opting to make the ACT/SAT optional, and instead have adopted a more holistic approach to undergraduate admissions. The problem with standardized tests, colleges find, is that they adopt an averages range that students fail to fit into. Time and time again, standardized test scores have proven to be inaccurate representations of their taker's abilities. Ultimately, everyone is different, and no one fits the exact description of “the...