Educational Testing Service HQ

Educational Testing Service HQ. (Don't Forget That #2 Pencil). , The story of the corporate campus around you, headquarters educational testing organization in the world, began on a crisp autumn day in 1954. Henry Chauncey, the first president of ETS, was taking a hike with his wife Laurie. After exiting the woods, they looked out over these same fields, then home to a spacious dairy farm. In that fleeting moment, Henry envisioned the land as the future headquarters of the Educational Testing Service., Various forms of educational testing have existed for centuries, but the practice of giving standardized exams, where every student receives the same test, began in the United States in the mid-19th century. Early test makers initially struggled with how to measure intelligence and provide tests that gave equal opportunity to students of different incomes and backgrounds. However, by the early 20th century, testing methods had matured, and standardized exams were being used routinely for admission to colleges and the military., Three of the nation’s leading non-profit testing organizations founded ETS in 1947 to consolidate and better coordinate their services. After purchasing land for a headquarters campus in 1955, ETS expanded its presence internationally, as well as focused inward to ensure assessments tested student aptitude fairly and with as little bias as possible. Today, ETS develops and administers tests in over 180 countries and scores more than 50 million tests annually, including the SAT and GRE for college admissions, the Praxis series for teacher certification, and the TOEFL and TOEIC exams for testing English as a foreign language., Among this property’s early owners before ETS were Francis and Elizabeth Huff, who constructed a farmhouse around 1810. From the mid-19th to early 20th century, the farm was owned by the Van Kirk family. After 1928, the Stony Brook Hunt Club used the property for sporting events with its kennels offering space for roughly 100 hunting dogs., Frederick Schluter, the next owner, operated a dairy farm here until the late 1950s. In 1956-57, Schluter’s prize dairy cow, “Active Acres Bessie,” produced a record annual yield of 1,544.75 pounds of butter fat, equivalent to 1,930 pounds of butter. Fred Schluter was brother of the late William Schluter, revered state assemblyman and senator from Pennington. The farmhouse at Schluter's Active Acres Farm later became the temporary home of ETS’s President Chauncey. The more than 200-year-old farmhouse remains today as a part of the Chauncey Hotel and Conference Center., (image captions) , . An educational staple for some and a growing relic for others, #2 pencils dominated American schools during the latter half of the 20th century -- the reason: they have the ideal lead density for filling in the oval “bubbles” read by ETS's scantron machines, as seen in the background image. , . In the 1870s, the Joseph S. and Sallie Van Kirk family farmed 120 fertile acres here along the south bank of the Stony Brook (Everts and Stewart. Combination Atlas Map of Mercer County, New Jersey, 1875). , . The Francis Huff farmhouse, today known as “The Laurie House” (Source: Chauncey Hotel and Conference Center) , . Early site plan for the northern campus, 1956 (Source: ETS). , . As seen in this mid-1950s rendering, ETS's buildings were set within a landscape of lawns, trees and circular drives, intended to create a self-contained campus conducive to work and employee satisfaction. ETS’s plan was cutting edge for its time and the first corporate campus in Lawrence Township (Source: ETS)., Content development by Hunter Research, Inc. Graphic design by Douglas Scott , History Along the LHT Learn more by visiting lhtrail.org/history