LANSING – Currently, to apply to college in Michigan, students must include their SAT exam scores – along with the SAT essay – in their transcripts as part of the annual Michigan Merit Exam, which is administered to public high school juniors.
However, a pair of bills currently in the state House, House Bills 4556 and 4557, aim to eliminate that.
“I was pretty much all set in stone,” Chloe Lobato, a freshman at Wayne State University, said on Thursday. The Wyandotte native graduated from Roosevelt High School with a 3.8 GPA, but needed to write the essay to give herself a better chance of getting admitted.
“I had AP classes in my application, so I was all set,” Lobato said. “It’s just that my SAT score wasn’t necessarily as good, so I wanted to better my chances of getting in by putting an essay in that I put like all my effort into to come here.”
State Rep. Regina Weiss (D-Detroit) is one of the co-sponsors of the bills. It is a rare bill in Lansing that has support on both sides of the political aisle.
“I cannot tell you the number of times, and it broke my heart, as a teacher, that I would hear from students who felt devastated that they didn’t do as well as they thought they would,” Weiss, a former English teacher at Pershing and Crockett High Schools in Detroit, said.
“I’m not saying that we should necessarily eliminate all standardized testing,” Weiss added. “I think it’s good to have benchmarks and know where kids are at, but I think we need to be really mindful of what we’re looking for.”
The effort comes after most Michigan universities started giving prospective students the option during the pandemic to include or withhold their test scores when applying.
Supporters of the bill argue that the transcript requirement is outdated, given that college applications have undergone significant changes. Plus, in-state students currently can’t withhold their test scores, while out-of-state applicants can.
“We want to make sure that we’re not inadvertently hurting students and their chance to get into an institution by including scores that they might not want included if they’re not required,” Weiss said. “Getting rid of that requirement will hopefully help a lot of those students be able to have a fair access that out-of-state students have.
Local 4 reached out to five schools about their admissions processes: Michigan State University, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Eastern Michigan University, Wayne State University, and the University of Detroit-Mercy.
MSU, which offers the option to withhold test scores, responded in a statement saying:
“Our review process is guided by the student’s preference indicated on the application.
If a student chooses test-optional, test scores are not considered in the admission review, even if the scores are sent by a testing agency or appear on the transcript.
Student choice is central to our admissions philosophy, and it is crucial that institutions respect this preference whenever possible.
We aim to provide a fair assessment of each student’s potential for success, while maintaining transparency in our selectivity practices and avoiding unnecessary distress for applicants."
Michigan State University
The State Dept. of Education is against the removal of the essay requirement, but Weiss says that things such as AP classes and exams are far more relevant to today’s college applicants.
“I think that that’s a great idea,” Kaitlin Bone, a Wayne State sophomore from Allen Park, said. “I don’t think test scores, the SAT scores, accurately represent what a person can do because it doesn’t account for test anxiety or anyone who has any kind of special accommodations.”
Weiss says the bills have been through a committee hearing and hopes to get them to a full vote in the House over the next few months.,