These changes also come at a time when a growing number of colleges are moving away from their reliance on standardized tests-by going вЂњtest optionalвЂќ or otherwise de-emphasizing the exam when making admissions decisions. The groups are looking to change their focus as the college admissions process is under fresh scrutiny in the wake of the Varsity Blues scandal, in which parents paid millions of dollars to get their kids into highly selective colleges by cheating on admissions tests or helping them pose as student athletes. Nicholas Lemann, author of The Big Test. Admission to these schools is a zero-sum game, and thereвЂ™s just no agreement as to who should get these slots.вЂќ In a statement on its website in May, the ACT said that it is transforming itself from an вЂњassessment companyвЂќ into вЂњan organization providing learning, measurement, and navigation support to learners.вЂќ The group is increasingly stressing what it calls a вЂњholistic frameworkвЂќ it developed to help students prepare for college, and has added new tools including a test for social-emotional skills. Meanwhile, the SATвЂ™s largest competitor, the ACT, has been working to rebrand itself as well, moving away from a focus on scoring students. In this new era, the College Board is testing a controversial new metric that has been labeled as an вЂњ adversity score.вЂќ The group calls the new tool the Environmental Context Dashboard, and its goal is to help college admissions officials put an applicantвЂ™s SAT score in perspective by showing whether the students come from a place of hardship or relative advantage. It only says something about whether students have yet attained the reading, writing, and math skills they will use to gain knowledge in college or career training it makes no statement about what they are capable of learning.вЂќ

вЂњThe new SAT does not tell students or anyone else how smart students are, or how capable they are of learning new things. вЂњThe era of trying to measure aptitude is finally over,вЂќ wrote the College BoardвЂ™s president, David Coleman, in an essay in The Atlantic earlier this summer, referring to the version of the test that has been in place since 2014, when the SAT was last revised. Or, at least, that SAT scores should be considered as just one factor among many in judging whether a student is ready for college, or a fit for a highly-selective campus. These days the leaders of the College Board, which runs the SAT, have been making a surprising argument-that colleges and parents should stop taking the scores of its signature test so seriously.

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