Although many colleges and universities are now making SAT and ACT test scores optional for college admittance, this was not the case in 2015-2016; back then, most universities required students to submit their SAT and/or ACT scores in order to be considered for admittance. Because these test scores were often required, seeing how many students took these standardized tests is a good indication of how many students applied to college and were intending to attend college in the near future. This visualization shows the overall number of students who took the SAT or ACT in each state and splits up the number of students by race. We wanted to view this to see if there are any racial biases across how many students take the SAT or ACT. We also wanted to view if some states have a higher proportion of students that take the SAT or ACT. To view the proportions of race across states, you can view the visualizations in the chronic absenteeism and school support tab. To view the total enrollment of students across states you can view the visualizations of Advanced Math Enrollment tab. Although we cannot draw conclusions from this visualization, they provide interesting insights.
Note: Schools that did not provide data for these variables had their cell marked with a -9. If there was an EdFacts missing data it was marked with a -8. If there was a system error it was marked with a -7, and if the cell value was too small it was marked with a -2. This impacts the visualization, as the visualization is the sum across all observations that use that variable. However, after viewing the dataset, we have made an educated assumption that if a school did not provide data for one of these variables, they did not provide data for the others, so the proportions should not be significantly different. This is still important to note, as we cannot guarantee this.