Notes

Standardized testing as a gateway to higher education was first established in the United States with the development of the College Entrance Examination Board in 1900. This board created a test designed to standardize admissions to elite universities in the northeastern United States and to encourage the development of a common curriculum among elite boarding schools (Chandler 1999; Lemann 1999). The original test consisted of essays and was not designed for mass testing. The College Board, however, created a broader test of IQ in 1926, the Scholastic Aptitude Test, commonly known today as the SAT I. This test was intended to help elite schools identify high-achieving students in nonelite high schools. In the early years, it also distinguished between white-collar students who were suitable for college and blue-collar students presumed to be ill prepared for such an education (Blau et al. 2003). By the mid-1950s, the demand for college education soared, spawning the development of the American College Testing Program (currently known as the ACT) in 1959. This test is the main alternative to the SAT. The origins of the SAT and ACT clarify their differing approaches. The SAT test was originally based on Army IQ tests as a measure of intelligence, whereas the ACT was historically designed to measure achievement rather than intelligence or aptitude.