James Madison University does not require standardized test scores from applicants, and instead focuses primarily on high school grades. Some of the most popular majors at the university include community health services and counseling, communication, and liberal arts and humanities, according to Niche. James Madison University has a total undergraduate population of 19,974 and is located in Harrisonburg, Virginia, only a few hours from Washington, D.C. Students on the green at James Madison University. The report also concluded that if colleges were to admit only those students with the highest scores, the student body would be noticeably wealthier and less diverse. A report released this week from Georgetown University found that if students were admitted only on the basis of their test scores at 200 of the nation's most selective colleges, only 53% of the incoming students would gain admission. Test scores were originally meant to create a level playing field, but a strict reliance on them may be having the opposite effect. While Heissel notes that these are early findings and encouraged more testing to be done, the results appear to confirm something many high school students preparing for college intuitively understand: high-stakes tests can send some people over the edge. "We found that the kids who had large responses in changes in their cortisol performed worse on high-stakes test," Heissel told INSIDER.
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The test increased the children's cortisol (a stress hormone) levels, which in turn led to poor results. The findings did not bode well for the exams. In 2018, Jennifer Heissel, an associate professor at the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy at the Naval Postgraduate School, studied stress levels from a group of New Orleans elementary school students before and after they took a standardized test.