This week, UNC System should vote to stay test optional, even if other universities aren’t. | Opinion
The UNC System Board of Governors recently gave themselves a pat on the back for keeping in-state undergraduate tuition at North Carolina’s public universities flat for seven straight years. But this week, A UNC System Board of Governors committee will consider renewing ACT or SAT requirements for some undergraduate applicants to UNC System schools.
The System stopped requiring applicants to submit standardized test scores almost four years ago, at the height of the pandemic. The committee will decide this week whether to recommend that applicants with certain weighted grade point averages in high school — between 2.5 and 2.8 — must begin submitting test scores.
This requirement would be harmful to N.C. residents and should not be reinstated. Here’s why:
There are known economic disparities in SAT/ACT scores. Studies have shown that students whose parents are in the wealthiest 1% were 13 times more likely than students from low-income families to score 1300 or higher on the SAT. Similarly, students whose parents had a graduate degree scored higher on the SAT than students whose parents did not have a high school diploma.
Requiring test scores would decrease the diversity of the student population. Test-optional institutions are experiencing increased enrollment of underserved and underrepresented populations, giving those students a better chance at employment security, higher lifetime earnings, and better physical health. After all, education is a public health issue.
When I worked as a college advisor with the Carolina College Advising Corps from 2020-2022 I saw the benefit of UNC System schools being test-optional. I had students who would not have been seen as competitive applicants to UNC-Chapel Hill due to their test scores. My students, who are thriving as current UNC students, would have never applied to Carolina if it was not test optional.
Some argue that there is no better measure for student success once enrolled in college than these test scores. That’s not true. Research from the University of Chicago has shown that GPA is a much better predictor of college completion than ACT scores. The same is true when looking at SAT scores predicting graduation rates — GPA was the better predictor.
Yes, higher SAT and ACT scores can predict a better chance of college completion, but GPA also predicts this, and does a better job as a predictor. This means standardized test scores do not add anything substantial to a student’s application and only stand in the way of higher education access.
When looking at colleges that have dropped testing requirements, data shows that there was no decline in GPA or graduation rates, showing that colleges are still selecting a successful cohort of students.
As of last year, 1,843 colleges were test-optional or test-free, with many being top institutions and Ivy League schools. The University of North Carolina System should follow in the footsteps of institutions such as Wake Forest and University of California schools — to name a few — and stay test optional indefinitely.
Being test-optional gave the students that I advised a chance to apply and show how they were well-rounded students who would immensely add to the Carolina community. Other advisors I spoke to who served low-income, under-represented high school students across North Carolina shared that sentiment.
Current and future high school students of North Carolina deserve a chance to apply to any UNC System school regardless of their results from one test. This policy issue will affect the health and well-being of people living in this state for generations to come.
Ava Peters graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology. She is currently getting her masters in Public Health at UNC Charlotte.
