Developmental Education Self-Placement Approaches

Considerations When Designing with Equity in Mind

Colleges around the country are experimenting with alternative strategies to placement testing for their entering students. They have been driven to do so for a variety of reasons: because there is clear evidence that placement tests are poorly predictive of college success; because traditional placement mechanisms have over-placed Black, Hispanic, low-income and first-generation students into developmental education, thereby increasing the cost of their college educations while reducing the likelihood they will earn a college degree. One increasingly popular approach is self-placement, in which students take an active role in the placement process.

This brief shares the approaches taken by colleges around the country, with an eye toward understanding how self placement can support ongoing, focused efforts to increase equity, such that students’ backgrounds do not predetermine their outcomes.