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VP Jenny Krugman
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Greetings and wishes for a joyous and fulfilling holiday season.
In last month’s issue of Connection, College Board President Gaston Caperton repeated a major theme that threads through our work across the South: There are inequities in our nation’s K-12 education system, and those inequities result in many students arriving on college campuses ill-prepared for academic success. Since the explicit mission of the College Board is connecting students to college success, and since our every effort is expended in the direction of fulfilling that mantra, we are focusing this month on a sampling of the many leaders in higher education who live and work according to this motto.
One such leader, Michael Shackleford, vice president of student affairs at Virginia State University, and past chair of our regional council, oversees enrollment at his institution as well as other student-centered issues beyond enrollment. As past council chair, he offers an ongoing voice in determining our council’s direction.
Michael writes, "My institution places emphasis on the rigor of high school curricular offerings when making admissions decisions. These include AP® courses and other college-preparatory work. We use the SAT® for admissions decisions and scholarship awards.” The College Board agrees with Michael, other council leaders and recently published NACAC positions that the SAT®, SAT Subject Tests™ and AP Exam scores are — along with a rigorous high school curriculum — excellent predictors of successful college performance.
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Michael Shackleford, vice president of
student affairs at Virginia State University
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We at the College Board have long advised that the best use of the SAT in the admissions
process is in addition to high school grades. The SAT and high school grades are both predictive of first-year college success and, because they are slightly different measures, they form a powerful combination.
The University of Georgia's Vice President of Admissions and Enrollment Nancy McDuff claims to use every tool at her disposal in the admissions process. Georgia now mandates that all applying students submit an SAT or ACT writing test score. Nancy says, “UGA will continue to use test scores with writing to help us make good admissions decisions. We know that the use of the SAT or the ACT with writing, combined with high school GPA and rigor of curriculum, helps us to admit students who will ultimately be successful at the university.”
Steve Farmer, assistant provost and director of admissions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, writes of the SAT, “I'd argue that we need more tools, not fewer, as we try to plumb the mystery of talent and potential. Standardized testing gives us one sounding, however limited and imperfect, about how students will probably perform in our classrooms. ... [I]t can help us see a little more clearly, and we need all the help we can get.”
From Virginia to Georgia to North Carolina, enrollment leaders praise curricular rigor, standardized tests with writing and AP Exam success as important elements figuring into their admissions decisions. This is a conclusion with which the recent NACAC publication and our own College Board studies agree.
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