Okay, so you thought acne, dating, avoiding bullies, that these were all stressful parts of high school, but how about prepping for the Sat or the act? I mean, it was a time of anxiety for so many of us because those tests so many times determined if we got into our dream school. But now there's this ongoing debate within the college admissions process at a lot of schools, including Ivy League, Columbia University, right now, that these tests should just be optional for applicants. In fact, just two years ago, the California State University System, the largest university system in the nation, announced that it will permanently switch to test free admissions. Well, some of the reasons that a lot of people want to get rid of these standardized tests are greater than just not wanting to take a test itself, but rather to level the playing field for college admissions, something that standardized testing was originally created to do. Executive director of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, otherwise known as Fair Test. Harry Fader joins me now with his take on all this. I'm curious. How did you do? Did you take the Sat or the act?

Harry oh, funny question. The Sat a long time ago, and so did I.

And I'm not even going to tell you what my score was, but clearly I did okay.

Yeah, I did fine, too. Yeah.

All right. So there are currently, what, more than 1900 act and Sat optional institutions and more than 80 test free institutions in the US. Right now. So why are these schools no longer relying on these standardized tests during their admission process?

Well, I think schools have realized that the tests don't measure what they purport to measure. They're not really a measure of anything that is necessarily connected with curriculum in schools. And furthermore, they correlate fantastically with family wealth and income. Furthermore, the history of the tests, the original intelligence tests, and the SATS were, frankly, they're rooted in eugenics. And over time, it became clear that the Sat and standardized test scores also discriminate and have disparate impact based on race in addition to family wealth and income. If you look at the college boards or the Act's own statistics, you will see that the higher your family wealth, the better you do on the Sat. There are a lot of reasons for this. It's an imminently you said you studied for the test. Now, in theory, if it was just measuring what you did in school, you wouldn't have to study for the test, something aside from what you were actually learning and studying in school. And furthermore, the universities will tell you we have lots of other ways to do admissions. That better. Not only does it get us a more diverse pool of applicants and enrollees, it also measures things that are actually relevant, like whether or not kids can play the guitar or whether or not kids want to study biomechanical mechanical engineering or something like that.

And that's part of the process with essays. And just in terms of academic performance, the statistics will tell you that grades are a much better measure of performance at school. And the data on standardized tests show that at best, they add a very, very small, marginal additional element of what we would call predictive validity as to how kids do in college. And it's just not worth it because you get enough with grades.

Right? And also, too, we want to bring it back to multiple intelligence. Yes, some kids just don't test well, but they are so smart and they're so creative, and they put together incredible projects and taking an Sat.

It doesn't tell us who they are.

It doesn't tell us who they are, exactly.

And it's funny you say how their projects and stuff like that. There is a movement to use what we call performance assessments to evaluate candidates. And in the days of technology, you can upload a project, you can upload yourself playing music. You can show your portfolio of work. And if you think about it, when kids apply to art schools, they have to show their portfolio of work. Why shouldn't it be that way for everything? Now, I understand there's sort of the colleges say, well, there's a logistics problem here. That's a lot to review. But if you just sort of shifted the time you spent reviewing some things to the time you would spend reviewing other things, there are ways of actually and there are some examples of this. The University of Michigan Business School, for example, they use a performance assessment process where applicants actually have to do a business school type case study. And what they're showing with their applicant pool now, once they've gone towards this performance assessment and away from just using standardized tests is they're getting a more diverse pool of applicants. They're also getting kids who then go on to sort of do more different things with their undergraduate business school degree.

Just one final thought quickly, because we've got to wrap things up. Basically standardized testing over the years. And you've studied this, you've researched it. Bottom line, does not measure someone's aptitude for college and how successful they're going to be in life, period. Right.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Carrie, perfect way to wrap up this segment. I wish this was going on back when I was applying to colleges. It probably would have changed my life. Harry well, Harry Fader, thank you so much. Great discussion. Appreciate you so much.

All right, take care.

Takes the stress off of raising my kids and thinking about college now.

Hi, everyone. George Stephanopoulopoulos here. Thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel. If you'd like to get more videos, show highlights, and watch live event coverage, click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel. And don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts. Thanks for watching.