Sitting through the ACT was the least enjoyable part of high-school, but I’m certain it was the most important for determining my post-graduation options.
Recently, illustrious universities such as Harvard and Dartmouth reinstated requirements for standardized-test scores. There are many reasons why admissions officers value such data when adjudicating hopeful applicants; as Yale University noted in its announcement, “Test scores are the single greatest predictor of a student’s future Yale grades.” But the tests are similarly valuable for students — especially those like me who had no other reliable metrics to demonstrate competency.
When I was twelve, I accepted the role as “Clara” in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular Starring the Rockettes; I couldn’t stay enrolled in a North Carolina charter school while performing in New York.
I began homeschooling as a practical and temporary solution to a unique circumstance, and it proved to be an attractive alternative to “regular school.” I learned much more in significantly less time, offering a welcome change from the hours I had spent wasting away at a graffiti-covered desk because the material was rarely challenging. Moreover, the flexible scheduling allowed for more ballet practices. With pronounced benefits and only the minor drawback of reduced socialization, my family decided that homeschooling was the best option for me. When we returned to North Carolina, I didn’t return to the classroom.
As time passed and the textbooks became increasingly difficult to understand, it was clear that I could not teach myself every subject. I needed a structured curriculum with lesson plans and a teacher. I enrolled in an online public school called Connections Academy, which offered academic rigor and a flexible schedule that accommodated dance practice. I could take advanced courses, submit assignments when it was convenient with my rehearsals, and contact a teacher if I needed assistance.
Still, ballet took priority. School was just a thing I had to do. (And with my perfectionist parents, I had to do well. To them, an A- is a stunning failure.) I moved out at age 15 so that I could attend The Rock School for Dance Education in Philadelphia, where I danced from about 10-to-5 every week day, then completed coursework at night. Certainly, it was exhausting to balance both ballet and school: I took an online quiz backstage at the Academy of Music during a Nutcracker intermission while wearing a costume. I graduated high school in three years so that I would appear more employable to a ballet company. Just after I turned 17, I joined Philadelphia Ballet (then called Pennsylvania Ballet) as a trainee. After an awful back injury and realizing I wanted to eat three meals a day, I decided to apply to college — something I had never thought I would do.
Although my focus was always dance, the high expectations set by my parents meant that I had a transcript showing the same vowel for every course. I thought that my high-school record and extracurricular accomplishments would make me a strong applicant for universities, even those considered “prestigious.” But I was wrong.
Although Connections Academy had a serious curriculum, online school wasn’t taken seriously. I was quizzed about its legitimacy during my college interviews. People believed that there were no exams, or if there were, then I just Googled the answers. I explained the mechanisms that ensured academic integrity; for example, there were oral exams conducted via phone call which required students to answer immediately without peeking at a textbook. Still, I was viewed with skepticism, and the prevailing assumption was that I had just cheated my way to a perfect GPA. (One interviewer suggested that my parents helped me write essays. The opposite is true: I edited my mom’s work.) To make matters worse, my letters of recommendation weren’t convincing, since I had never actually met any of my teachers. And because my class size was small, it wasn’t significant that I was a top student.
However, my applications had a saving grace: my ACT score. The exam allowed colleges to evaluate me with respect to other students whose transcripts were more credible. The admissions officers could dismiss my grades as fraudulent, but not my score on a standardized test; it was the only feature of my application that provided a reliable metric of intellectual capability. The ACT was an opportunity for me to establish myself within a large distribution — something my high school was unable to provide.
Although my particular circumstances were unique, my need for a standardized test was not. What National Review wrote about standardized testing in an editorial last year remains true: “It identifies intellectually gifted children from all strata of society, but even more crucially allows talented children from disadvantaged backgrounds (whether economic or minority) to shine in a way their local educational opportunities (or a chaotic home life) might never have permitted.” But such testing similarly identifies gifted students with unconventional backgrounds like homeschooling or attendance at a religious institution that might be deemed less legitimate by a college-admissions officer. Sitting through the nearly four-hour-long ACT exam was the least enjoyable part of my high-school education, but I’m certain it was the most important for determining my post-graduation options.