Standards (1890-1920)
College Board Examinations and the Curriculum
The eastern colleges and universities used the College Entrance Examination Board to give a semblance of authority and uniformity to their definition of an appropriate secondary school course.
Frederick Rudolph
"Curriculum: A History of the American Undergraduate Course of Study since 1636"
The College Board Entrance Examination hoped to exert influence over secondary education through its system of common examinations. By determining the content of the examinations, College Board members in secondary but primarily higher education expected that the secondary curriculum would become standardized.
The College Board needed to ensure that institutions would use its examinations rather than rely on admission by certificate or on the institution's own exams. Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University used the force of his presidency to persuade Columbia University, its coordinate college for women Barnard College, and New York University to use the College Board's examinations.
Quick Facts about The College Board's Early Examinations
- They were first administered in June 1901.
- They were taken by 978 students. Of those, 738 were applicants to Columbia University and many others were applicants to Barnard College or New York University.
- The examinations were not universally accepted by other institutions until the 1920s.
- The examinations offered nine different subject tests in 1901.
The College Board chose the subjects offered for examination because each subject was included in the report of the National Education Association's Committee on College Entrance Requirements and was required for admission to at least one of the College Board member institutions.
However, even with these attempts to standardize the high school curriculum, until the 1920s, colleges and universities were forced to respond to the high school and its curriculum geared to a practical multitude rather than force curricular standards on the lower schools.
How did the College Board define subject matter content and requirements?
In many ways the Committee on College Entrance Requirements and the College Board's exams were a means of claiming the authority to define subject matter content. The College Board worked with organizations of scholars in specific disciplines to define that subject and to give legitimacy to its exams. The College Board worked with the following organizations for the early examinations:
- English: National Conference on Uniform Entrance Requirements in English
- History: Committee of Seven of the American Historical Association
- Latin and Greek: American Philological Association
- French and German: Modern Language Association
- Mathematics, chemistry, and physics: National Education Association committees
