Episode Details

For over a century, the College Board has shaped who gets into college –  and what “success” even means to American kids. In this episode of The Deep, Erika traces how a nonprofit testing company became a billion-dollar gatekeeper, why standards have quietly shifted, and why elite universities are now scrambling back to testing after going test-optional. Is the system ensuring merit – or masking its own decline? Let’s look at the data.

Timestamps:
0:00 - College Board: The gatekeeper of American education
1:06 - College Board’s unsettling origin
4:35 - College Board takes over universities
6:47 - “Aptitude” controversy
8:49 - College Board cashes in (big time)
10:00 - Becoming the gatekeeper
12:24 - How do we escape the College Board matrix?

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