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(MCT) MILWAUKEE – Elizabeth Byers didn’t really worry about having the academic chops to get… (MCT) MILWAUKEE – Elizabeth Byers didn’t really worry about having the academic chops to get in to college.

She was valedictorian at Reedsburg Area High School and had a nice set of scores: a 4.0 GPA, a 29 on the ACT and a 1,980 on the SAT.

Still, when Lawrence University asked if she wanted her test scores to be considered, she checked the “no” box andbreathed a sigh of relief.

Lawrence, in Appleton, Wis., is among a growing list of more than 750 colleges and universities that have some kind of test-optional admissions, according to FairTest, a Massachusetts nonprofit that opposes heavy reliance on the tests. The trend comes as standardized tests have faced increased scrutiny for possible bias against students who are the first in their family to go to college, minorities and non-native English speakers.

Advocates of test-optional policies point to studies showing students who don’t submit scores have lower average test scores than other admitted students, but get better grades once they enter college.

Critics argue standardized tests are essential tools for admissions officers who have to deal with grade inflation in secondary school GPAs and an increasingly murky definition of high school class rank.

When Lawrence went test-optional in late 2005, about a quarter of its roughly 2,300 applicants chose not to submit scores. About a quarter of admitted students were also non-submitters. A study of students admitted in 2006 showed non-submitters had lower test scores, but ended up with roughly the same GPAs as submitters at the end of their first term.

The school also experienced a 12 percent increase in applications when it went test-optional.

Lawrence’s results mirrored the findings of a 20-year study at Bates College in Maine, released in 2004. The school, test-optional since 1984, found no differences in academic performance or graduation rates between score submitters and non-submitters. Bates also nearly doubled its applicant pool in the two decades after making testing optional. – Erica Perez, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

(MCT) UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – After two days of visiting sports bars and steel plants and bowling badly, Barack Obama got back Sunday to what he does best.

He held a mass rally in a college town.

On the Old Main lawn at Penn State, on a cold and sunny afternoon, the Democratic presidential candidate addressed an adoring crowd estimated by university police at 22,000 – a figure that would make it one of the larger rallies of the national campaign to date.

The gathering was the highlight of day three of Obama’s six-day bus tour across Pennsylvania. The trip, which has been heavy on low-key, retail politics, is central to his attempt to start eating into Hillary Rodham Clinton’s double-digit lead in the polls three weeks before the April 22 primary.

In his speech, Obama talked about ending the war in Iraq, about reforming education and healthcare and about making Washington a less cynical and more productive place. He also spoke to Democrats’ concerns about the nasty turn the race has taken in the last few weeks.

“As this primary has gone on a little bit longer, there’ve been people who’ve been voicing some frustration,” he said. “