has had on America’s system of higher education, which was already struggling before the pandemic. One need look no further than the current state of affairs at the College Board, long regarded as an impenetrable fortress among the ivory towers. Its core product, the SAT, has set the standard for college admissions for more than five decades. Few realize it, but the New York City–based organization that offers the SAT and Advanced Placement tests is a nonprofit that operates as a near monopoly. Its tests, which have a stranglehold on their student-customers, fuel more than $1 billion in annual revenue and $100 million in untaxed surplus. It has $400 million invested with hedge funds and private equity, and its chief executive, McKinsey-trained David Coleman, 50, pulls down compensation of almost $2 million a year. But fortress College Board is under attack. “Shame on them,” says Anne, a mother of two teenage girls in Raleigh, North Carolina. “If the College Board cared about the wellbeing of students, they would shut down the test.” Her 17-year-old has been trying to take the SAT since the spring, but all three of her test dates were canceled. More than 1 million students are in the same boat.“Such incompetence and recklessness!” posted Stacey Falk Feinsilber on the College Board’s Facebook page. Her daughter Hannah got three contradictory emails over the two days before her August 29 exam at a Tumwater, Washington, high school. The final note canceled the exam less than 12 hours before it was set to begin. “Any lawyers out there interested in pursuing a class action suit against the College Board?”Frustrated students and apoplectic helicopter parents aren’t College Board’s only problems. The nonprofit and its SAT have long been criticized as perpetuating a lopsided system that favors the affluent. The College Board proclaims that its mission is “to connect students to college success and opportunity.” Yet its own data show that Black and brown students score lower on both the SAT and AP exams than do whites. But it’s the Board’s inability to safely adapt its operations to the pandemic that has prompted customers to opt out in droves. Since March, more than 500 colleges, including every school in the Ivy League, have joined the growing “test optional” movement. All told, more than 1,600 four-year schools will not require scores for admission in 2021, and a growing number are becoming “test blind,” meaning they won’t consider scores at all. For many students and colleges, the testing exodus will make 2021 one of the most bewildering admissions cycles ever (see our guide to admissions during the pandemic). The disruption may not be temporary. Prior to the pandemic, the Board of Regents of the prestigious University of California system, in the state with the largest share of the nation’s SAT takers, had considered whether to get rid of the test. The Regents were moved by the data on disadvantaged students.
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