Every year at about this time, some 12 million high school juniors and seniors across the country start to hyperventilate about their prospects for admission to college.
The US News' college rankings, which arrived last week, amp up the pressure by defining "success" in terms that most students can't achieve. In hopes of improving their odds, many sign up for expensive and time-consuming test preparation courses promising improved scores on the SAT and ACT. Although these courses may provide a small competitive advantage--or, in what amounts to the same thing, may neutralize the advantage of other students in test-prep programs---they also fuel students' anxiety. Not only the students who take the courses, but the many more who don't take them (because, for example, they can't afford to).
This is also the time of year when admissions officers at some of the most selective colleges and universities go public with their wringing-of-hands and oh-so-sincere regrets over the competitive excesses of the admissions process. But these expressions of concern ring hollow. The reason: the same college officials, if they really cared about making the admissions process fairer and less fraught, have the power to do so.
All it takes is for the colleges to add a question to their application forms requiring applicants to disclose whether they have taken a test-prep course for the SAT or ACT. This would so diminish the potential benefit of prep courses that high school juniors and seniors would stop taking them, sparing themselves much money, time and emotional pressure.
Test prep courses are to college admissions what performance-enhancing drugs are to professional sports. There is enormous pressure to use them to gain an advantage or just to stay competitive with others who use them (or are believed to use them). Because, regrettably, test prep and steroids actually do improve performance---albeit often by a smaller margin than expected---they also undermine the scores of all competitors.
Colleges can't give credence to student test scores that may be unfairly inflated relative to applicants who did not take a test prep course---a category that includes many thousands of students who simply couldn't afford the tuition. Similarly, Barry Bonds' success in hitting home runs undermines confidence in his statistics: his home run totals are not truly comparable to the HR totals of other sluggers who don't use banned drugs.
Simply by asking the question---"Did you take a test-prep course?"---colleges would cause demand for test prep courses to collapse And that can only be a good thing (unless, perhaps, you're an investor in a test-prep company).
The advantage conferred by taking a test-prep course depends on colleges not knowing that you took the course. If colleges knew, they would adjust down your SAT or ACT score by the margin (5-10%) that the test prep courses claims to boost it, thereby making your score comparable to those of students who didn't have the benefit of a course.
It doesn't matter that some students might lie, answering "no" when asked if they have taken a prep course. The very fact that the question will be asked, that many students will answer honestly, and that a false denial could be exposed, will completely change the cost / benefit analysis of students deciding whether to take a test prep course.
Moreover, just one or a few colleges can make this happen. While it's true that the most efficient way to reduce demand for test prep programs is for groups of competing colleges and universities to join together in asking applicants if they have taken such a course, that sort of collective action is not necessary. (It might also put the colleges at risk of liability under the antitrust laws).
All it will take is for one or a few highly selective schools, acting independently, to include the test prep question in their applications. Schools of this caliber don't have to fear reprisals from the test-prep industry, or a fall-off in applications. Their asking the test-prep question will be enough to create significant doubt among college applicants everywhere about the value of taking a test-prep course.
It's high time top colleges stop bemoaning the cutthroat competition of undergraduate admissions, and the pressures on stressed-out high school students that it creates----and do something about it. Which college or university will be first to take the small, but extremely consequential, step of asking applicants if they've taken a prep course for the SAT or ACT?
----------
Peter Scheer, a lawyer and journalist, is executive director of the First Amendment Coalition. He has watched his own children suffer through the overly stressful college application process.