College Board Totally Explained

Everything about The College Board totally explained

The College Board is a not-for-profit examination board in the United States that was formed in 1900 as the College Entrance Examination Board (CEEB). It manages many different standardized tests which generally cater to individuals in the third or fourth year of high school planning on continuing their educations at a post-secondary level. The SAT, the most well-known of these, is a test widely used for admission to universities in the United States. The College Board is headquartered in New York City with a large office in Reston, Virginia, but also maintains thirteen other offices in the United States and in Puerto Rico. The current president and CEO of the College Board is Gaston Caperton, the former governor of West Virginia.

Regional offices

College Board maintains a small number of regional offices throughout the Continental United States. Among the functions of the regional offices are the development and execution of professional development programs for teachers and school counselors, as well as research into and product development in the area of financial aid. The College Board currently is engaged in several top-to-bottom school redesign programs that aim to increase achievement by poor and minority middle and high school students. Funded by grants from various foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the College Board Schools

operate autonomously within New York City public school buildings. A similar program named EXCELerator began a pilot program for the 2006-2007 school year at 11 schools in Washington, DC, Jacksonville/Duval County, FL, and Chicago Public Schools. Both of these school reform programs use the SpringBoard

and CollegeEd

materials as part of their programs.

CEEB Code

The College Board maintains a numbered registry

of countries, college majors, colleges, scholarship programs, test centers, and high schools. In the United States, in addition to the College Board's internal use this registry is borrowed by other institutions as a means of unambiguous identification; thus, a student might give his or her guidance department not only a college's name and address, but also its CEEB code, to ensure that his or her transcript is sent correctly. There exists a similar set of ACT codes for colleges and scholarships (External Link

), test centers (External Link

), and high schools (External Link

), however these codes are less widely used outside ACT, Inc.

College Board Tests

SAT

The SAT Reasoning Test is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. The SAT is administered by the College Board not-for-profit corporation[1] in the United States and is developed, published, and scored by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). SAT Subject Tests measure student performance in specific areas, such as mathematics, science, and history.

PSAT/NMSQT

PSAT/NMSQT stands for Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. It's a standardized test that provides firsthand practice for the SAT Reasoning Test. It also functions as a qualifying test for the National Merit Scholarship Corporation scholarship programs.

College Level Examination Program

College Level Examination Program provides students of any age with the opportunity to demonstrate college-level achievement through a program of exams in undergraduate college courses. There are 2,900 colleges that grant credit and/or advanced standing for CLEP exams.

Advanced Placement Program

The College Board's Advanced Placement Program is an extensive program that offers high school students the chance to participate in college level classes, broadening their intellectual horizons and preparing them for college work. It also plays a large part in the college admissions process, showing both student's intellectual capacity and genuine interest in learning. The program is also important in that it allows many students to gain college credit for high performance on the AP exams, much in the same manner as the CLEP. Granting credit however, is still at the discretion of the college.

Criticism

Recently, The College Board has come under a large amount of criticism from students and educators alike. The criticism comes with respect to two different areas.

Cost

Many students and parents feel that the group is too expensive. With the SAT Reasoning Test costing $43, AP Tests costing US$84 (2008 administration), and SAT Subject Tests costing a baseline of $20 with additional tests costing $8, the testing fees can be prohibitive for many individuals. Furthermore, there are numerous other costs that can be added to the basic costs, including late registration, rescoring, and various answering services that are available. SAT grade reports cost $9.50 per college for 3-5 week delivery ($26.50 extra for 2 day delivery), and AP grade reports cost $15. In school districts that don't offer exam subsidies, high-achieving students may pay more than $600 in exam fees in the course of the college applications process. In addition, due to the competitive nature of the test, many students find it necessary to take preparatory courses or to have SAT tutoring, which can cost hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars. Even the College Board's College Scholarship Service Profile (CSS), a college financial aid application meant to help students pay for college, requires a fee. For the 2008-09 school year, the price is $25 for the first report sent, and an additional $16 for each additional college to receive the information.

Fairness

See Criticism of the SAT for more information. College Board also has been attacked, especially with regard to the SAT Reasoning Test, with the argument that its tests don't accurately measure either intellectual potential or skills learned in high school. Scores for students taking the test a second time generally improve. Coaching can also help students achieve much better results. In response to demand, extensive preparation regimes have become popular, as well as the emergence of many test prep services and classes. As a result, many lower income students who are financially unable to attend these classes are put at a disadvantage.

Further Information

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