For many of the nation’s public universities, access to higher education for all students has become a priority as demographic data indicate that the U.S. minority population will be the majority by 2050. The new option for fall 2015 college applicants is that Temple University will no longer require Scholastic Aptitude (SAT) or American College Testing (ACT) scores for admission.
Under the new policy, applicants who do not submit test scores will be required to answer specifically designed, self-reflective short answer questions that speak to non-cognitive attributes. Prospective students can now decide for themselves if their test results accurately reflect their academic ability and success potential. To date, one-third of all new applicants selected the Temple Option.
As the first urban large public research university in the northeastern U.S. to implement a test-option, Temple aims to offer opportunity for underrepresented students and address equity concerns in traditional college admission procedures. There are a growing number of colleges that have implemented some sort of admissions test-option, including the University of Texas-Austin, Arizona State University, Wake Forest University, Alcorn State University and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.
After conducting research instrumental to the Temple Option being implemented, access challenges resonated with the dean of the College of Education at Temple, Dr. Gregory M. Anderson.
“Is this an equitable policy and are standardized test scores indicative of academic performance if non-cognitive factors have a greater predictive value of persistence and are driven by student and parental choice?” said Anderson. “The selection process should not happen before students apply.”
In comparison to peer institutions, Temple’s diversity numbers are significant but nowhere near an accurate representation of the surrounding city. Although the option is open to national applicants, Philadelphia prospective students remained the focus.
“When pulling the data, we had Philadelphia in mind,” said Anderson. “There is a strong correlation between socioeconomic status and standardized test scores. The city has a significant population of low-income, first-generation, students of color coming out of K-12. We also know that Advanced Placement (AP) tests and college prep courses are distributed by zip code, so how then can we rely on test scores? It is not an achievement gap; it is an opportunity gap.”
