ACT is phasing out Compass, a popular but controversial college placement test that colleges use to determine whether students need to take remedial courses.
Community colleges and nonselective four-year institutions rely heavily on Compass and Accuplacer, a similar test from the College Board. Both assessments are low-cost, computerized and relatively quick ways of assessing students’ abilities in reading, writing and mathematics.
A 2012 study found that only one in five colleges use high school grades, class rank or any other criteria besides high-stakes standardized tests to decide whether students have remedial needs in mathematics. That number was only 13 percent for remedial English placement. And when students place into remediation, few ever make it to college-level courses, much less to graduation.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/06/18/act-drops-popular-compass-placement-test-acknowledging-its-predictive-limits