Push to take SAT scores off Michigan students' transcripts, abolish essay

An effort is underway to change state law and remove SAT scores from high school students transcripts and discontinue the SAT essay
Most colleges have made submitting test scores optional when applying
The state Department of Education supports the effort but opposes elimination of the SAT essay

A renewed push is underway to stop requiring that scores from the state-administered SAT test appear on Michigan students’ high school transcripts.

The effort comes as most Michigan colleges give prospective students the option to include or withhold a standardized test score when submitting an application. The proposed legislation, House bills 4556 and 4557, also would eliminate the SAT essay requirement, a move the Michigan Department of Education opposes.

Supporters argue Michigan’s decades-old transcript requirement is outdated since college application policies have changed and is a detriment to prospective Michigan college students if they can’t withhold their test scores while competing against outstate applicants who can.

“Right now students are at a disadvantage,” said Bob Kefgen, associate director of government relations for Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals.

“This isn’t fair for Michigan students,” said Patrick O’Connor, a former Michigan school counselor who is now CEO and chief strategist of College is Yours, an organization working to improve college access. “The irony is that students from outstate who are applying to Michigan schools have more flexibility and can put their best face forward on their applications by not sending their scores but that option is not available to Michigan students.”

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Michigan includes the SAT test, along with the SAT essay, as part of the Michigan Merit Exam given to public high school juniors annually. But the law requiring the test scores to appear on students’ high school transcripts was enacted more than two decades ago.

O’Connor and others testified last month in support of the two bills before the Michigan House Education and Work Force Committee, which is expected to revisit the package next week. A similar package of bills never made it through a previous legislative session.

Test-optional policies in the college application process became common during the pandemic, when students weren’t able to take the test. Advocates lobbied colleges to drop the requirement long before that, arguing that not everyone does well on taking standardized tests. Additionally, supporters say, test-optional policies level the playing field between students from wealthy and low income families since higher income students can afford to hire tutors and retake the test.

While the state Department of Education supports removing the test scores from student transcripts, it is opposed to removing the SAT essay that is part of the three days of testing given to Michigan high school juniors in the spring.

“Michigan Department of Education (MDE) believes it is important and necessary that high school students be taught and assessed in writing,” MDE spokesman Bob Wheaton said.

Assessment of writing is important so that students, “acquire skills that allow for information processing through written expression. Use those acquired skills to share information through a means of synthesis, analysis and critical thinking.

Move from learning to write to writing to learn,” Wheaton said. “Acquisition moves to comprehension.”

Continuing to administer the SAT essay would still lead to a score appearing on a student’s transcript, said O’Connor, past president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the Michigan.

The College Board, the parent company of the SAT, discontinued offering the essay test in 2021 and Michigan is among only four states that require it. Advocates are lobbying to remove it as a requirement for Michigan students because students have to write an essay that is unlike any college writing, said O’Connor.

“This is really about the state’s commitment to increasing college access, and we feel this legislation significantly does that,” O’Connor said. “Anything that respects the rights of students to choose and expands their college access is a great idea.”

The bills could potentially be among the few that become law in this legislative season, when only a handful of laws have passed, said Rep. Matt Koleszar, D-Plymouth, a committee member and one of the bills’ sponsors.

“It’s not relevant to colleges so why are we putting the scores on the transcripts?” said Koleszar.

This is one of the few issues that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree with, said Tom Kunse, R-Clare, another committee member and bills’ sponsors.

“This would reduce standardized testing, and be a big win for kids,” Kunse said.

Among the students who support the law change is Thomas Swanney, who was a Royal Oak high school junior when he took the SAT. He discovered when applying to colleges that his score wasn’t high enough to get into one of the schools he wanted to attend.

A selfie of Thomas Swanney, blue background. — Thomas Swanney, a Wayne State University student, supports an effort to remove SAT scores from Michigan students’ high school transcripts, “because it adds a lot of stress for a lot of students.” (Courtesy photo)

Swanney, 18, realized he couldn’t withhold his test score when submitting college applications since it was on his transcript. So he paid to take the test again.

“I know how hard it is to try to get over that hump of, ‘Oh, I didn’t do as well as I wanted to on the SAT,’” said Swanney, who attends Wayne State University. “Now I am trying to get into college, and it’s messing me up so I have to retake it. I’m all for taking it off of the transcripts because it adds a lot of stress for a lot of students.”

For decades, Michigan has administered standardized tests for school accountability to the state and federal government by measuring students’ knowledge in English, math and science. Nearly 20 years ago, the state began offering free college entrance tests as part of 11th grade standardized testing. Not all states offer this, but many do, said Kefgen.

“There is inherent value in offering students a college entrance exam because students might not otherwise take it and might not otherwise realize they have the potential to go to college,” said Kefgen.

Origin of transcript requirement

The law requiring students’ SAT scores on transcripts dates back to the early 2000s when Michigan mandated the now-defunct Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) test, Kefgen said. Student and school participation was not taken seriously so lawmakers attempted to address that by requiring MEAP scores on students’ transcripts.

“The hope was that college admissions officers would start looking at MEAP scores and use them for college admissions and then they would matter,” said Kefgen. “That never happened. Colleges weren’t interested in MEAP scores.”

But the requirement to put standardized test scores on students’ transcripts remained in effect when Michigan began in 2006 administering the ACT, then the SAT, as part of 11th grade standardized testing.

Years later, test-optional policies in college applications became the norm.

Only a handful of colleges in Michigan require student test scores as part of the application process and that’s why it’s important to change the law, said Kefgen, whose organization supports the proposed legislation.

When Michigan passed a law requiring an essay in 2004, neither the ACT or the SAT had an essay exam. The organizations were developing one in response to national pressure, especially from competitive colleges, said Kefgen.

“Now, 20 years later, colleges have stopped looking at the essay test,” said Kefgen. “They found there wasn’t value and it wasn’t a good measure of students’ composition abilities at the college level.”

The College Board, the parent company of the SAT, discontinued in 2021 offering the essay option as part of its weekend test offering nationwide. Only in places where state law requires the SAT essay is it now administered, including Michigan, said Kefgen.

“So we are continuing to require students to spend an extra hour on top of the two hours that they are already spending to take the SAT to compose an essay that schools aren’t looking at because educators found there isn’t very good value in it,” said Kefgen. “And in order for students to do well on the SAT essay, they have to teach a particular style of writing that doesn’t emphasize good composition skills.”

Even if college admission officials say they won’t look at the scores on a transcript if a Michigan student chooses to apply as a test-optional applicant, students still wonder if that is factored into the admissions decision, said Sarah Gammans, director of school counseling at Northview High School in Grand Rapids.

Changing the law would “give students more autonomy over their college application,” said Gammans, past president of the Michigan Association for College Admission Counseling, the organization that first lobbied for the change in a previous legislative session.

It is the right thing to do, Gamma added, “if we want equity and autonomy for a student and fair competition with students from out of state who are applying to Michigan colleges.”

Push to take SAT scores off Michigan students’ transcripts, abolish essay

Origin of transcript requirement

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