Cabrini has adopted a new test-optional policy for the undergraduate application process.
An announcement by Dr. Donald Taylor, president of Cabrini College, released Jan. 8, states that “ample evidence demonstrates that standardized admission tests are poor indicators of student success,” and went on to say that the tests “put low-income students at a disadvantage.”
Cabrini is following in the footsteps of several other schools in the Pennsylvania area including Duquesne University, Temple University and Bryn Mawr College that have all gone test-optional in the last semester alone.
According to Taylor there are “inherent socio-economical biases” in standardized tests that leave students coming from financially-struggling school districts at an unfair disadvantage.
“It’s not a fair apples-to-apples comparison,” Taylor said. “They’re [students in affluent school districts] teaching to the test, while other schools can’t afford to do that.”
The one drawback that the college will face in the wake of becoming test-optional is that traditionally students have been placed in classes partially based the information afforded to the college by the incoming students standardized test scores.
“They [faculty and administration] had to make sure they had the instruments in place to show how they were going to place students in math, language or the honors program,” Taylor said.
Becoming test-optional is not the only change Cabrini is making to the undergraduate admission process. According to Robert Reese, vice president of Enrollment Management at Cabrini, admissions is now requiring an essay portion of the application which will be looked at along with the prospective students’ letter of recommendations, high school grade point average and other supporting documents.
At the end of the day it is all about Cabrini catering to the students that they have pledged to offer education to.
“I think Cabrini is going to get the kind of student that have traditionally come here. I don’t really see us capturing a huge number of students just because we’re test optional,” Reese said.
“What I see is the accessibility for first-generation type students, the Hispanic students, the other minority students—this is an option for them to have access to a quality education.”
