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New York University is dropping out of the National Merit Scholarship Program, becoming the latest institution to say that it is wrong to award scholarships in which a standardized test score (in this case the PSAT) is the sole criterion for becoming a semifinalist, Bloomberg reported. Shawn Abbott, assistant vice president of admissions at NYU, said, “We simply do not feel that enrolling a larger number of National Merit finalists is a necessary way for us to attract the most academically qualified freshman class." The College Board, the sponsor of the PSAT, has always said that its tests should not be used in isolation for high-stakes decisions, and critics have for years said that using the PSAT alone violates much expert advice about how tests should be used, but the National Merit Scholarship Program has declined to change. The University of Texas at Austin dropped out of the program in 2009.
