ABOUT ETS
Educational Testing Service (ETS) was founded in 1947 when
the American Council on Education, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and the
College Entrance Examination Board contributed their testing programs, a portion of their assets, and
key employees to form Educational Testing Service under the leadership of Henry Chauncey.
In creating the organization, ETS's founders brought to life a concept proposed a decade earlier by
Harvard University President James Conant. Conant's belief was that a single organization devoted to
educational research and assessment could make fundamental contributions to the progress of education
in the United States.
Today ETS is the world's largest private, nonprofit educational measurement and research organization,
operating on an annual budget of approximately U.S. $1.1 billion. The mission of ETS is to advance
quality and equity in education for all people worldwide by providing fair and valid assessments,
research, and related services. ETS helps teachers teach, students learn, and parents measure the
educational and intellectual progress of their children.
ETS develops various standardized examinations primarily in the United States, but it also administers
tests such as TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), GRE
(Graduate Record Examination) in most nations. Many of the assessments it develops are associated with
entry to U.S. undergraduate and graduate educational institutions. ETS develops, administers, and scores
more than 50 million tests each year at over 9,000 locations in the U.S. and more than 180 other countries.
Much of the work carried out by ETS is contracted by a private, nonprofit organization called the College
Board. The most popular of the College Board's tests is the SAT, taken by more than 3 million students
annually. As well as test development, ETS also carries out internationally recognized educational
research.
The international campus-like headquarters of ETS is in Princeton Township, New Jersey (with a
Princeton, New Jersey, mailing address); processing, shipping, customer service and test security is
in nearby Ewing, New Jersey. It also has offices in California, Oregon, Puerto Rico, Texas,
and Washington, D.C.
More than 2,500 employees work at ETS's offices throughout the United States and the world. Of these,
more than 1,100 of ETS's professional staff have training and expertise in education, psychology,
statistics, psychometrics, computer sciences, sociology, and the humanities. Six hundred have advanced
degrees, and 250 hold doctorates. In addition, another 2,500 employees support ETS's wholly owned subsidiary,
Prometric.
ETS is governed by a 16-member Board of Trustees. Board members represent various levels and areas of
interest in education and business. Among other things, they select the ETS president, oversee the
leadership provided by the ETS officers, set policy, and determine future directions for the entire
organization. Although ETS is the world's largest testing organization, there are competitors for most
of the testing programs and related products and services it develops.
By building on existing capabilities, ETS is increasing its presence in certain education markets
(K-12, occupational testing and training, and the international arena-Europe, Asia, and Latin
America), allowing the organization to offer a broader array of assessments, ones that focus on
placement, instruction, and adherence to standards-in addition to those that focus on selection and
licensing.
ETS also has two subsidiaries. The first one, Prometric, the recognized global leader in
technology-enabled testing and assessment services, provides test development, test delivery and data
management capabilities to approximately 500 clients in the academic, professional, government,
corporate and information technology markets via the Internet or by utilizing a robust test center
network in 135 countries. Prometric delivers ETS's TOEFL, GRE, and Praxis teacher licensing
assessments. The other one, ETS Global BV, oversees all regional activities and operations for ETS
assessments and makes ETS research, products, and services available to organizations worldwide.
Headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, ETS Europe makes the world-class products, services, and
resources of ETS more readily accessible to European educators and test takers.