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Test rewards ‘comprehension and reasoning over memorization or strategic guessing,’ founder says
The Classic Learning Test is being adopted by more states as another option for college admissions beside the ACT, SAT, and AP exams.
Indiana became the latest on Thursday when Gov. Mike Braun signed a law requiring public colleges and universities in the state to begin accepting the classics-focused learning assessment.
Recently, the University of Georgia and the University of North Carolina also began accepting the alternative test in their admissions processes. Additionally U.S. military schools are now accepting the test for the class of 2027, The College Fix reported.
“More options create a healthier marketplace where exams must earn trust through quality and service,” Jeremy Tate, founder of the test, told The College Fix in a recent interview. “Colleges are reassessing standardized testing in light of broader changes in higher education.”
The test assesses students’ reading, grammar, writing, and mathematics skills with analysis-based prompts based on classic Western literature and philosophy (such as Plato and Dante).
As the website explains, “Standardized tests should leave students feeling inspired and enriched while equipping them to pursue their goals. That’s why our tests feature beautiful and meaningful content in addition to assessing timeless academic skills.”
Since Tate created it a decade ago, the Classical Learning Test has expanded to more than 300 colleges and universities across the U.S., according to the website.
The continued expansion of the test comes amid growing concerns about American students’ literacy skills. Recent reports in various news outlets, including the Associated Press and The Atlantic, have exposed how fewer and fewer high school and college students are expected to read works of literature in their entirety as part of their education.
As a high school English teacher, Tate said he noticed that the SAT and ACT tests have “short passage” questions that tend to ask for only surface level answers.
So, in 2015, Tate created an alternative test that rewards deep thinking and discourages guessing or memorization without understanding why the answer is right.
“We aimed to design questions that reward comprehension and reasoning over memorization or strategic guessing,” he told The Fix. “The feedback we often hear from students is that CLT feels more like engaging with real academic material rather than navigating a maze of disconnected and meaningless prompts.”
When asked if there has been much opposition to the test’s expansion, Tate told The Fix that he has heard arguments that it is too “new,” one-sided, or controversial because it promotes Western Civilization as healthy.
Those making the argument forget that a new test may be an improved one, he said.
“Newness is not a flaw if it brings clarity and improvement,” Tate told The Fix. “Ultimately, the best response to criticism is performance (strong student outcomes, growing institutional acceptance, and a product that educators find genuinely valuable).”
Although many colleges have been deconstructing the ideals of Western Civilization, Tate said the test “has always been clear in saying that Western civilization needs to be defended and passed on to the next generation.”
The College Fix called and emailed the media relations and admissions offices at the University of North Carolina and the University of Georgia over the past two weeks, but none responded to requests for comment about the Classical Learning Test expanding to their universities.
When contacted by phone, a representative of the University of Georgia admissions office told The Fix no one was available for an interview.
MORE: Florida first state to accept Classic Learning Test as alternative to SAT, ACT
