Colleges are Starting to Make “College Ready” Meaningful

Last week, nearly 200 colleges and universities throughout the country announced they will place students who are designated “college ready” on Smarter Balanced—one of the new Common Core consortia assessments—directly into credit-bearing coursework. Earlier this spring several colleges, including Illinois’ community college system, announced they will use the PARCC assessments for course placement purposes as well.

As public schools across the country administer the assessments for the first time in grades 3-8 and high school, these colleges are stepping up to make “college ready” a meaningful designation.

Over the past five years, states have made a clear commitment to raising academic standards for public schools. With incredible numbers of students arriving on college campuses unprepared to succeed there, states have worked with testing experts to create new assessments on the knowledge and skills students need to succeed in college-level coursework. (Smarter Balanced and PARCC—which stands for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers—are the two “brands” of assessments that Common Core states chose several years ago when they began this work.) These tests promised to give students information sooner about their preparedness for college—and time to course-correct and catch up before high school graduation.

Until very recently, though, it’s been a mystery as to whether the scores on the new tests would be accepted by colleges and universities as a valid measure of students’ abilities. It was not entirely clear that they would be meaningful where they matter the most: within colleges and universities themselves.

The state assessments administered in primary and secondary schools have had a negligible—and in many states nonexistent—impact on a student’s academic experience after high school. Colleges rely instead upon course placement exams like COMPASS and Accuplacer, developed by ACT and College Board respectively—as well as AP test scores and dual enrollment credits for more academically advanced students—to guide students into their first year of classes. Overwhelmingly, student scores on these exams are the only measure by which colleges place students into credit bearing classes.

But while many students do indeed arrive on campus unprepared for college-level work, too often the placement tests themselves contributed to surging enrollment in remedial classes. These courses don’t count toward a student’s degree, but do count toward their tuition costs. The placement exams have been shown to over-identify students in need of remediation, placing students who could have been successful in college-level work behind—and decreasing the likelihood they will complete a college degree. In fact, only a third of students placed in to remediation go on to earn a bachelor’s degree in six years.

As I highlighted in last year’s report, Common Core Goes to College, course placement policies have thus been the most prominent area where the two Common Core testing consortia have worked to integrate their new assessments with higher education. And with last week’s announcement, many students deemed “college ready” on these new high school assessments will have the opportunity to bypass the extra layer of assessment and proceed directly to college-level work.

In Delaware, where more than half of high school graduates end up in remedial courses and fail them at an alarming rate, this new route to college-level courses could make a big difference for students. Those who score a 3 or higher on Smarter Balanced who are planning to attend the University of Delaware or Delaware State University (remediation rates of 18 and 81 percent, respectively) will proceed directly into classes that will contribute toward their chosen degrees. In fact, for those students scoring a 4 in English, both universities have recommended that students consider dual-enrollment in English 110 during their senior year of high school.

To University of Delaware President Patrick T. Harker, this is a smart move. In a public announcement last week, he noted that, “By setting policies around the Smarter Balanced Assessments, we can be sure that students are ready for our entry-level courses.” As he pointed out, this isn’t just important for the university: “it’s good for students and their families, who will know—early and often—where they stand on the path toward college or work.”

While these new policies are an important first step, Delaware’s new system for course placement isn’t without some complexity. Beyond remediation, mathematics course placement will continue to require extra testing for many students. Common Core Goes to College charts the process that previously guided math placement at University of Delaware: student test scores on ALEKS, a course placement exam developed by McGraw Hill, dictated which course students could take of the many offered. Now, a 3 or higher on Smarter Balanced (coupled with a B or better in Algebra II or a higher level mathematics course) will allow students to avoid remediation, but beyond that, an ALEKS score will still be necessary for placement into many higher-level math courses.

Students that hope to enroll in Calculus, for example—a necessary evil for students hoping to pursue degrees in the STEM fields—will still need to take and score well on the ALEKS exam.

And course placement is still only one piece of the puzzle as students navigate the transition from high school into college. Applying and qualifying for financial aid and meeting state-set admission requirements often require altogether different test scores—not to mention different thresholds for grade-point average, core high school course requirements, and other evidence of academic merit.

Nonetheless, for states involved in these two testing consortia, their colleges’ decision to use these assessments for course placement is a clear signal that the tests are a meaningful measure of college readiness. For high school students that do well on their tests this spring, scoring “college ready” will mean they are actually ready for college."