College Board

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College Board
College board logo.svg
Founded 1900; 124 years ago (1900)
Type Educational
Location
Website www.collegeboard.org
Formerly called
 College Entrance Examination Board

College Board is an American private nonprofit corporation that was formed in 1900 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) to expand access to higher education. While College Board is not an association of colleges, it runs a membership association of institutions, including over 6,000 schools, colleges, universities and other educational organizations. College Board develops and administers standardized tests and curricula used by K-12 and post-secondary education institutions to promote college-readiness and as part of the college admissions process. College Board is headquartered in New York City.[1] David Coleman has been the president of College Board since October 2012. He replaced Gaston Caperton, former Governor of West Virginia, who had held this position since 1999.[2][3]

In addition to managing assessments for which it charges fees, College Board provides resources, tools and services to students, parents, colleges and universities in the areas of college planning, recruitment and admissions, financial aid, and retention.[4] It is partly funded by grants from various foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation until 2009.[5]

History

The College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB) was founded at Columbia University on December 22, 1899, by representatives of 12 universities and three high school preparatory academies. These were:

The organization's intent was to "adopt and publish a statement of the ground which should be covered and of the aims which should be sought by secondary school teaching in each of the following subjects (and in such others as may be desirable), and a plan of examination suitable as a test for admission to college: Botany, Chemistry, English, French, German, Greek, History, Latin, Mathematics, Physics, Zoology".[7]

CEEB Code

College Board maintains a numbered registry of countries,college majors, colleges, scholarship programs, test centers, and high schools. In the United States, this registry is borrowed by other institutions as a means of unambiguous identification; thus, a student might give his or her guidance department not only a college's name and address, but also its CEEB code, to ensure that his or her transcript is sent correctly. There exists a similar set of ACT codes for colleges and scholarships, centers, and high schools; however, these codes are less widely used outside ACT, Inc.

Tests and programs

SAT and SAT Subject Tests

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Main articles: SAT and SAT Subject Tests

The SAT is a fee-based standardized test for college admissions in the United States first administered in 1926.[8] The SAT is administered by College Board in the United States and is developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). The SAT covers writing, reading, and mathematics. SAT scores range from 600 to 2400, with each of the three sections worth up to 800 points. Most students take the test during their junior or senior year of high school. In the marketplace, the SAT competes with the ACT, another standardized college admissions test.

The SAT Subject Tests are intended to measure student performance in specific areas, such as mathematics, science, and history.

On March 5, 2014, College Board announced that a redesigned version of the SAT would be administered for the first time in 2016. The exam will revert to the 1600-point scale, the essay will be optional, and students will have three hours to take the exam plus 50 additional minutes to complete the essay.[9] On May 13, 2015, College Board announced the release of a new credential initiative to get students more interested in careers focused in STEM with a Project Lead the Way partnership.[10]

PSAT/NMSQT

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Main article: PSAT/NMSQT

The PSAT/NMSQT is a fee-based standardized test that provides firsthand practice for the SAT. It also functions as a qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship Corporation's scholarship programs.

Advanced Placement Program

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Main article: Advanced Placement Program

The College Board's Advanced Placement Program is an extensive program that offers high school students the chance to participate in what College Board describes as college-level classes for a fee, reportedly broadening students' intellectual horizons and preparing them for college work. It also plays a large part in the college admissions process, showing students' intellectual capacity and genuine interest in learning. The program allows many students to gain college credit for high performance on the AP exams, much in the same manner as the CLEP. Granting credit, however, is at the discretion of the college. There are 2,900 colleges that grant credit and/or advanced standing.[citation needed] Critics of the Advanced Placement Program charge that courses and exams emphasize breadth of content coverage instead of depth.[citation needed]

College Level Examination Program

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Main article: College Level Examination Program

The College Level Examination Program (CLEP) provides students of any age with the opportunity to demonstrate college-level achievement through a program of exams in undergraduate college courses.

Accuplacer

The College Board's Accuplacer test is a computer-based placement test that assesses reading, writing and math skills.[11] The Accuplacer test includes reading comprehension, sentence skills, arithmetic, elementary algebra, college-level mathematics and the writing test, Writeplacer. The Accuplacer test is used primarily by more than 1,000 high schools and colleges[12] to determine a student's needed placement. Often community colleges have specific guidelines for students requiring the Accuplacer test. The Accuplacer Companion paper-and-pencil tests allows for students with disabilities to take the test through its braille, large print and audio tests. The biggest benefit of the Accuplacer and Accuplacer Companion tests are their ability to be scored immediately through an online scoring system and taken in remote locations. While there are normally no fees for taking the test, some institutions may charge a fee to retake the test. Note that if a testing institution is not local, an examinee may be required to arrange a proctor for the test. If so, a local library may be willing to serve as proctor as there are not many other options for individuals in this case. Most schools will only test their own admissions candidates.

SpringBoard

SpringBoard is a pre-Advanced Placement program created by College Board to prepare students who intend to take AP courses or college-level courses in their scholastic career. Based on Wiggins and McTighe's "Understanding by Design" model, the SpringBoard program attempts to map knowledge into scholastic skill sets in preparation for Advanced Placement testing and college success. Units of instruction are titrated to students within and across all school grades, providing a vertically articulated curriculum framework that scaffolds learning skills and subject test knowledge. Implicit in the course curriculum, the program embeds pre-AP and AP teaching and learning strategies across grade school levels and classwork.

The curriculum is applicable to grades 6 through 12. Teachers are provided with formative assessments, professional training, and a variety of teaching tools to track student progress. The instructional framework is integrated in the curriculum content and subject materials. SpringBoard also provides other Web 2.0 resources aimed at making the program more community oriented.

CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE

College Board also offers the CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE, a financial aid application service that many institutions use in determining family contribution and financial assistance packages. This is a fee-based service to institutions and students also must pay a fee to submit it to a school.

Criticism

Since at least the late 1970s, College Board has been subject to criticism from students, educators, and consumer rights activists. College Board owns the SAT and many students must take SAT exams for admission to competitive colleges. Although the ACT is usually accepted as an alternative to the SAT, some colleges require students to take the SAT Subject Tests. Some colleges also require students submit a College Board "CSS/Financial Aid PROFILE" when applying for financial aid. As there are no broadly accepted alternatives to College Board's AP, SAT Subject Test, and CSS/Financial Aid products, the company is often criticized as exploiting its monopoly on these products.

FairTest, an organization that advocates against over-dependence on standardized tests in school admissions, maintains that the SAT often underestimates the aptitude of African-American students and others. FairTest maintains a list of SAT-optional colleges on its website.[13]

Consumer rights organization Americans for Educational Testing Reform (AETR) has criticized College Board for violating its non-profit status through excessive profits and exorbitant executive compensation; nineteen of its executives make more than $300,000 per year, with CEO Gaston Caperton earning $1.3 million in 2009 (including deferred compensation).[14][15] AETR also claims that College Board is acting unethically by selling test preparation materials, directly lobbying legislators and government officials, and refusing to acknowledge test-taker rights.[16]

Exam fees

The SAT Reasoning Test costs $52.50 ($77 if late), the AP Tests cost US $91 as of May 2015, and taking AP exams is often a requirement for students taking AP classes,[17] and the SAT Subject Tests cost a baseline of $26 with a $16 fee for each test.[18] Furthermore, there are numerous other services that can be added to the basic costs, including late registration, score verification services, and various answering services that are available. SAT score reports cost $11.25 per college for 1–2-week electronic delivery, or 2–4-week paper or disk delivery, depending on what method the school requires ($31.00 extra for two-day processing). College Board allows high school administrators to authorize fee waivers for some services to students from low-income families, generally those meeting National School Lunch Act criteria.[19] In addition, due to the competitive nature of the test, many students find it necessary to take preparatory courses or to have SAT tutoring, which can cost hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars.

Even College Board's College Scholarship Service Profile (CSS), a college financial aid application meant to help students pay for college, requires a fee. For the 2008–09 school year, the price is $25 for the first report sent and an additional $16 for each additional college to receive the information.

In 2006, College Board had $582.9 million of revenue but spent only $527.8 million, leaving a $55.1 million surplus.[20] Budget surpluses persist despite market-leading compensation packages for College Board executives - in 2009 College Board paid out a $1.3 million/year package for CEO Caperton, more than the head of the American Red Cross or Harvard University. It paid nineteen executives more than $300,000 each per year.[21]

MIT study

In 2005, MIT Writing Director Les Perelman plotted essay length versus essay score on the new SAT from released essays and found a high correlation between them. After studying 23 graded essays he found that the longer the essay was, the higher the score it was given. Perelman found that he could accurately determine the score of an essay without even reading the essay. In his study, he discovered that several of these essays were full of factual inaccuracies. The College Board does not claim to grade for factual accuracy.

Perelman, along with the National Council of Teachers of English also criticized the 25-minute writing section of the test for damaging standards of writing taught in the classroom. They say that writing teachers training their students for the SAT will not instill revision, depth and accuracy, but will instead guide them to produce long, formulaic, and wordy pieces.[22] "You're getting teachers to train students to be bad writers", concluded Perelman.[23]

Advanced Placement (AP) classes

Some teachers have criticized AP classes as restrictive in the nature of their curriculum and yet indispensable due to the importance of AP classes in the college admissions process. College Board is effectively able to control every aspect of AP classes directly or indirectly. The $91 fee, which is noted critically above, results only in a score report with the test name and grade. No details are given on how this scoring was reached nor are individuals given access to this information from College Board.[24]

Reporting errors

In March 2006, it was discovered that College Board had mis-scored several thousand tests taken in October 2005. Although the Board was aware of the error as early as December, it waited months to respond and, in late March, schools still did not have correct details. Within days of the first announcement, the Board corrected upward the number of affected students.[25]

Many colleges use the SAT score to decide acceptance and scholarships. The late reporting of errors upset many high-profile colleges. The dean of admissions at Pomona College commented, "Everybody appears to be telling half-truths, and that erodes confidence in College Board...It looks like they hired the people who used to do the books for Enron".[25]

Sale of student data

As of 2015, College Board charged $0.40 per name for access to student information.[26] Investigation by the New York Civil Liberties Union revealed that one of College Board's customers was JAMRS, a military recruitment program run by the United States Department of Defense.[27] College Board and ACT have been sued over the use of this information.[28] In addition there is criticism that students aren't sufficiently made aware that their data is being sold.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Contact Us." College Board. Retrieved March 21, 2015.
  2. ↑ Leadership at College Board
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ What We Do at College Board. Retrieved August 12, 2013.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ History of College Board at College Board
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Accuplacer at College Board
  12. ↑ Placement Testing at Monroe Community College
  13. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ Costello, Carol. (December 29, 2009). "Educating America: The big business of the SAT", CNN. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  16. ↑ AETR Report Card: College Board. Americans for Educational Testing Reform. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
  17. ↑ Calendar, College Board. Retrieved July 8, 2010.
  18. ↑ SAT Fees, College Board
  19. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Nonprofit Head of College Board Paid More Than Harvard’s Leader, Janet Lorin, BloombergBusiness, August 26, 2011.
  22. ↑ Winerip, Michael. (May 4, 2009) SAT Essay Test Rewards Length and Ignores Errors. The New York Times. Retrieved September 5, 2009.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  28. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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