Joseph A. Soares

SAT Wars: The Case for Test-Optional College Admissions Joseph A. Soares

Brief Description: What can a college admissions officer safely predict about the future of a 17-year-old? Are the best and the brightest students the ones who can check off the most correct boxes on a multiple-choice exam? Or are there better ways of measuring ability and promise? In this penetrating and revealing look at high-stakes standardized admissions tests, Joseph Soares demonstrates the far-reaching and mostly negative impact of the tests on American life and calls for nothing less than a national policy change. SAT Wars presents a roadmap for rethinking college admissions that moves us past the statistically weak and socially divisive SAT/ACT. The author advocates for evaluation tools with a greater focus on what youth actually accomplish in high school as a more reliable indicator of qualities that really matter in one's life and to one's ability to contribute to society. This up-to-date book features contributions by well-known experts, including a piece from Daniel Golden, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in the Wall Street Journal on admissions, and a chapter on alternative tests from Robert Sternberg, who is the worlds most-cited living authority on educational research. As we continue to debate the use and misuse of standardized testing, SAT Wars will be important reading for a wide audience, including college administrators and faculty, high school guidance counselors, education journalists, and parents. Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contributor Bio:  Soares, Joseph A Joseph A. Soares is Associate Professor of Sociology at Wake Forest University. He is the author of "The Decline of Privilege" (Stanford, 1999), which received the prize for outstanding book from the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association. Contributor Bio:  Hawkins, David David Hawkins is a Full Professor at Harvard University, where he has been a member of the faculty since 1962. He would certainly be considered "old guard" at Harvard, where the accepted practice was to have a Harvard Ph. D., develop new courses, and eventually write innovative textbooks. Although this is no longer the norm at Harvard Business School, David maintains a strong reputation across the country as an innovative instructor and a good textbook author. Contributor Bio:  Atkinson, Richard C Richard C. Atkinson is President Emeritus of the University of California. Before becoming president of the UC System, he served as chancellor of UC San Diego; prior to that he served as director of the National Science Foundation and was a long-term member of the faculty at Stanford University.