Davin Sweeney, creator of The Crush podcast and an Associate Director of Admission at University of Rochester, interviewed Compass co-founder, Adam Ingersoll, about the current state of college admission testing. Davin overcomes his squeamishness about standardized testing to lead a thought-provoking conversation about the myths and truths of today’s college admission tests.
Before you check out the show yourself, please read Davin’s hilarious preface to his interview with Adam:
Tests are the worst.
Except, see this smiling man here though? He loves them. He loves them because it’s his job to help kids do better on them. Not exactly for free, per se…but hey, we all need to feed our kids. And Adam has nine of them. I mean, four. Five maybe..?
Joking aside, Adam is a friend of mine who is not only the co-founder of the leading test prep company on the west coast, Compass Education Group, but is also widely recognized as a legitimate expert on the topic of standardized tests for the purpose of college admission (i.e. SAT and ACT). He’s not afraid to challenge conventional thinking on this issue and embrace the complications presented by forcing 2 million kids a year to endure this modern rite of passage.
A lot is happening these days as far as college admission testing goes: you’ve got a new SAT, changes to the ACT, more schools each year adding a “test optional” policy to their admissions procedure, dogs and cats living together taking the SAT and the ACT, it’s madness! What to make of it all?
So I have my own personal traumas associated with taking the SAT and Adam helps me (kinda) work through them. We talk about the nature of these exams, the changes afoot, he shares his opinions on “test optional,” and we talk about the prospect of people like me in college admissions taking the SAT for the first time since high school.
Strong chance I puke.
Davin
