How Admission
Assessment Fits into a
Post-Pandemic World
BY DR. KEITH WRIGHT, VICE PRESIDENT, PSYCHOMETRICS & ASSESSMENTS AT THE ENROLLMENT MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION (EMA)
It comes as no surprise that COVID-19's impact has reached far and wide, resulting in
much loss for students around the world. Ongoing research studies suggest that young
people in grades K–12 tragically have emerged from the pandemic with a deficit in both
academic and social development opportunities. Time will reveal the impact of these
losses on society and the lives of this generation.
In addition to the effect on students, COVID-19 has upended the admission process, chang-
ing everything overnight—from face-to-face interviews and on-campus tours and revisit
days, to standardized admission testing as the foundation of each student's application file.
For years, standardized tests have been a cornerstone within the comprehensive admission
decision-making system for independent schools. Then, the pandemic caused in-person test-
ing to come to a screeching halt, and many independent school admission teams were left
scrambling for ways to evaluate their incoming applicants without test scores. What did school
enrollment leaders do to assess students without the full package and how did they approach
selection decisions without this information? How has the pandemic changed the admission
process specifically when it comes to testing, and what will the new normal be going forward
for student selection into our schools?
To get answers to these questions, we turned to EMA's assessment and research expert, Dr. Keith
Wright, VP, Psychometrics & Assessments, for a conversation on what the future of assessment
might look like. In turn, Dr. Wright spoke with several of EMA's seasoned enrollment leaders to
gauge their experiences during the pandemic and to look ahead to the future.
12 The Yield
