Last year, William C. Hiss, former Dean of Admissions at Bates College — one of the first schools to embrace a test-optional policy — presented a study of more than 123,000 students at 33 test-optional universities to NACAC (the National Association of College Admissions Counselors).
But abortion rights groups say that by agreeing to the platform he in fact embraced a litmus test, and that this is a crucial indication of how he would make appointments to the Supreme Court.
Mr. Cheney, pressing the party's attacks of recent days, asserted that Mr. Kerry had embraced a "global test" for the preemptive use of force in last week's debate.
Trump similarly embraced an ideological test for Muslims seeking entry into the US while campaigning for president.
But the California agency's guidance embraced a less strict test, saying the "totality of the circumstances" should be assessed, a standard adopted by the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
Still, Mr. Bush has himself declined to embrace a litmus test for appointments to the court and has indicated he is considering supporters of abortion rights as potential running mates.
"Even from his letters, he's embraced this as a test, as a way of reshaping him," Ms. Hekmati said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
While Mr. Bush has declined to embrace an abortion litmus test for judicial nominees, his support for a platform that includes one is sure to be used against him this fall, many strategists agree.
When colleges announce they're making entrance exams optional, they publicly embrace a holistic stance: standardized tests are incomplete scorecards on how a student will fare in college; they favor families who can afford test prep, while minority students tend not to do well.
Ries is a key proponent of something called the Lean Startup movement, which argues that startups need to develop products and markets by embracing a methodology focused on testing, agile development, constant iteration in response to customer feedback and customer centricity.
The two-stage design they developed was described by Angoff and Huddleston (1958, p. 1) as consisting of "two tests, each relatively homogeneous with respect to the distribution of item difficulties and pitched at different but overlapping levels of talent so that, in combination, they would embrace a wider range than the tests in operational use at the time".
