ABSTRACT
Standardized admissions testing first took root in the United States more than 100 years ago, when college applicants were faced with a bewildering array of admissions criteria that varied widely across schools. This chapter examines the main higher education admissions tests used in the US today, the SAT, the ACT, and the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE). The SAT testing program is sponsored by the College Board; the tests are administered by ETS under a contract with the Board. The SAT acquired a competitor in the college admissions test market in 1959, when the American College Testing Program was founded in Iowa City by E. F. Lindquist, a University of Iowa statistician and director of the Iowa Testing Programs, and Ted McCarrel, the University of Iowa admissions director and registrar (ACT, 2009a). For the ACT and SAT, the raw score is simply the number of correct answers. The GRE verbal and quantitative measures are scored the same way.
