By Elizabeth Merrigan ’16, Staff Writer

Newark Academy values its students for traits other than outstanding academic ability. The admissions office bases their decisions on character, eagerness to move outside of comfort zones, leadership qualities, desire to surpass expectations, and ability to inspire others, to mention a few. But, as every student who enters the grueling world of applications asks, where did standardized tests come into the equation?

The purpose of standardized tests, may they be the SSATs, ISEEs, or the SATs, is to measure the verbal, quantitative, and reading skills that students have obtained from schooling over the years and how they will be able to apply them going forward.  One of the requirements for Newark Academy’s upper school application is a clear-cut standardized test score, either from the SSATs of the ISEEs.  While it may be an efficient way to sketch out a student’s capabilities, it is vague; there are major factors that are not reflected by the figures, graphs and charts that Mr. Taylor, the Director of Admission, receives from each student.

“I think it’s unfair,” he stated firmly.  He explained that one shouldn’t expect students to simply perform at the same level, the “norm,” when put in a highly pressured situation for several hours.  A person may be more susceptible to anxiety and make more careless errors.  While two students may have equal intellectual capabilities, their scores may vary based on their disposition.

Not to mention, test-takers come from different educational backgrounds. Some public school and private school curriculums differ quite substantially from one another, and students coming from one may have had more experience with certain material than their counterpart.  “It didn’t really test me on what I had learned,” Brittany Tong ‘16 confirmed.  She voiced the stress she endured when preparing for and taking both the SSATs and the ISEES, both of which she found to be somewhat on the difficult side.

In addition, standardized tests fail to capture a student’s ability to develop responses to answers in a creative, meaningful way, due to the multiple-choice bubble sheet format—with the exception of the essay, which is taken into account by the desired schools but not scored.  It does not allow opportunities for students to demonstrate more specific, or perhaps more useful and more long-term skills.  There are even “tricks” to raise one’s testing score by making quick decisions based on—in the case of SSATs—the ¼-point penalty for an incorrect answer, the 1 point reward for a correct answer, and the probability of success with process of elimination for a particularly difficult question.  Tips along these lines are not necessarily noted by everyone, though they can make a drastic difference in a student’s percentile ranking.

Newark Academy’s admission process addresses these flaws by using standardized tests as a supplement for the three recommendations, interview, and transcripts that are required for application.  Due to the nature of the tests, “Student A,” who is barely scraping by in class at school, perhaps with a mediocre or sub-par average, may score well above average on standardized tests than “Student B,” a straight-A student, who is not good at standardized tests.  From this, it can be inferred that Student A is intelligent, but does not put effort into his schoolwork, while Student B is either the contrast of student A or intelligent, but a poor test-taker.  Student B would therefore better suit the school.  This data could only have been collected through the combination of standardized tests and transcripts.  “We judge what a student does from Monday to Friday as opposed to what happens during a three-hour period,” Mr. Taylor explained.

Nevertheless, “SSATs [and ISEEs] are the last things we look at,” he added.  The staff reviews over 500 applications four times each to get the most accurate picture of each applicant.  Teachers and others who spend extensive time with applicants have a sense of what they are truly like and what they are capable of, which is why recommendations are valued.  Interviews offer first-hand information about an individual’s personality, and transcripts show one’s growth as a student over an extended period of time.  To Mr. Taylor and the admissions team, there is much more to consider about a prospective student than his or her testing scores.

When asked if he was personally satisfied with the system, Mr. Taylor responded affirmatively, remarking that “our system is pretty solid.”  The process is able to shed light on the “whole package” of the applicant.  All in all, it is safe to say that at Newark Academy standardized test scores play a lesser role in a very effective admissions process.