Test prep isn’t the answer
Every year, the abysmally low number of Black and Latino students admitted to New York City’s elite public high schools makes headlines. This year was no exception, with only eight Black students winning offers to Stuyvesant, and Black and Latino students getting just 9% of offers to the eight schools overall.
In 2019, billionaire Ronald Lauder and his allies poured millions into beating back Mayor de Blasio’s attempt to get rid of the city’s Specialized High School Admissions Test, now the sole admissions criteria. Their solution? Test prep. With former Citigroup Chairman Richard Parsons, Lauder gave more than $750,000 to expand test prep for underrepresented youth preparing for the SHSAT. The new numbers show the investment does not seem to be paying off.
As a professor who studies test prep, I’m not surprised at all. Despite their good intentions, Lauder and Parsons missed some huge, highly relevant findings of the research on test prep.
First, the gains associated with test prep are fairly small. Derek Briggs of the University of Colorado found that the actual gains associated with test prep range from 10 to 30 points per section on the SAT, a stark contrast from the “raise your score by 300 points!” typically advertised by the test industry. Harvard Prof. Chris Avery actually found no effect linked with test prep for a sample of students who participated in College Possible, a college access program.
Second, test prep doesn’t work in the same way for everyone. Studies by Soo-yong Byun and Hyunjoon Park, as well as myself and Ann Becks, have highlighted who tends to benefit: the affluent, and East Asian Americans (e.g., Korean-Americans, Chinese-Americans).
Why? Test prep tends to work best when it is trying to get students from, say, a 1350 to a 1500. It is more about teaching tricks than teaching content, so it helps when you are building on an already strong academic foundation — the type that affluent students are much more privy to and East Asian-Americans (on average) are more likely to be able to experience than (on average) Black and Latino peers.
Author Paul Tough calls it the “rich-get-richer effect.” A few years ago, Khan Academy worked with the College Board to offer free SAT prep. Tough found that the program worked well for a sliver of students, but in general, it benefited those who were already advantaged.
Socialization also matters. East Asian-American youth receive early and repeated messages that tests matter. Going to test prep is a rite of passage for many. There is also the influence of cram school culture from Asia. For all of these reasons, test prep does not instantly level the playing field.
While there are plenty of Black and Latino alumni of the city’s elite public high schools who decry the SHSAT, there are also racial minorities (like Parsons) who defend it. Their logic is understandable: Some think that getting rid of the test is compromising standards, and giving in to the idea that minority youth should be held to lower expectations.
There is tremendous talent within Black and Brown communities, and students from all backgrounds are fully capable of rising to the occasion. But is a test the only way to capture excellence?
Absolutely not. We should learn from what universities are doing. Numerous institutions did not require the SAT this past year, and Caltech is going “test blind” for the next two years — as in, don’t even send us your scores. According to Director of Undergraduate Admissions Nikki Kahealani Chun, the vaunted institution never looked much at test scores to begin with, finding other records — recommendations, essays, documentation of achievements — to be more helpful in identifying talent.
Moreover, Caltech looks at a student’s race/ethnicity in understanding who a student is and their context for opportunity. That does not mean automatically admitting people due to their race; it simply means allowing people to look at race as one of many factors in understanding an applicant’s experiences. Caltech and elite colleges are not bastions of equity, but the move to test-optional/test-blind shows what is possible.
To those worried that moving to a more holistic approach would hurt Asian-Americans, consider that the percentage of Asian-Americans admitted to Harvard actually went up this year, when Harvard went test-optional.
The point: Tests can certainly capture some talents, but not all. Relying solely on rigid conceptions of merit is an outdated notion, as is the idea that expanding test prep will eradicate inequality. Change is possible, and advancing equity does not mean compromising on excellence.