The SAT (stupid ass test)
For juniors in high school it comes around every year some time. That one Friday night when you don’t allow yourself to leave your house, you eat a good dinner, and get into bed at an hour earlier than usual. All in preparation for the dreaded Saturday morning when you have to wake in the same hour as a weekday, eat a good breakfast and mentally prepare yourself for endless hours of focus. The SAT. Hour upon hour of frantic focus trying to get to every question possible, stressed about whether you’re answering correctly. The test, which has hung over your head throughout high school, comes to an end and you’re allowed to leave the school, brain dead. Usually a sense of relief comes that it is completed, but then the waiting game starts. Months pass and all you can do is hope and pray for that impossible perfect score.
The SAT is not an effective or fair way to judge someone’s qualifications for college admission. To place so much stress on one single test causes differences in how students could potentially perform. The obvious argument is that some people do not test as well as others. And in the case of the SAT your family’s financial status could also play a role in how well you take the test. The SAT is a skills test versus and knowledge test such as the ACT; therefore, if you practice and learn how to take the test you will do better. As Dean of College Admissions at the University of Chicago stated, “The College Board would rather not tell us that scores, in the aggregate, correspond to income of parents” (O’Neill). Surveys taken from cities throughout Ohio have shown that there is an obvious relation, “Officials at Baldwin-Wallace College say the correlation between test scores and income is one of the reasons they want to make the SAT and ACT optional for enrollment” (Downey). Who is accepted on college campuses also is impacted by who scores well on the test.
While colleges’ goals are to diversify their campuses as much as possible, using a test favoring people of similar income only breeds campuses of ultimately similar people. As associate press writer of the University of California said, “One of the criticisms leveled against the SAT is that it is culturally biased and unfair to disadvantaged students. Admissions diversity has been an issue at UC since 1995, when regents voted to drop affirmative action. Numbers of black and Hispanic students have fallen at top campuses since then” (Locke). How much money your parents are making should have no influence on your ability to get into the college you want. Sarah Rimer from the New York Time wrote that, “Some argue that it is really a marketing tool, intended to encourage students to take the test more often. Others say that, contrary to the College Board’s goal, the policy will aggravate the testing frenzy and add yet another layer of stress and complexity to applying to college” (Rimer). No matter your parents’ financial situation you should be able to work your hardest and achieve all that you are capable of.
To begin to judge a student and their qualifications off of a single test is unfair when we are so much more than a test. As colleges say, they are looking for the well-rounded student, someone involved in many activities. As the New York Times even states, “The president of the University of California is proposing an end to the use of SAT’s as a requirement for admission to the state university system he oversees, one of the largest and most prestigious” (Schemo). To have the president of such a huge institution state that he is thinking about terminating use of SAT’s as a mark of eligibility for incoming college students is very significant for the futures possibility. The UC (University of California) system is one of the most prestigious in the United States and were they to change something so big, it would have a great influence in other colleges and universities throughout the country.
Of course there will always be the orthodox SAT believers, and on top of all of those people is the head of College Board, Gaston Caperton. Caperton said, “To drop the SAT would be like deciding you’re going to drop grades” (Locke). Caperton argues that the SAT is the only was to have a ‘national yardstick’ for keeping everyone on the same scale. Caperton states, “You do everything you can to help [students] learn as fast as they can” (Schemo). This basically tells me that Caperton is not necessarily interested in how well the student comprehends everything as long as they seem like they know how to test and only look good on the surface. So while a ‘national yardstick’ is something necessary for ranking students, the SAT is not an accurate measurement for aptitude. It is more like a test for determining how well off your family stands.
Colleges need to play more attention to the student’s grades and the courses they took. Although college admission staffs state that they look at you and everything you offer, it is frustrating to hear so much emphasis being placed on standardized testing scores. This is what makes hearing the heads of huge institutions, such as Chicago or California, put down the SAT is so refreshing. Whatever the replacement be for the mammoth SAT, it should come sooner rather than later. Diversifying and creating a fair admissions marker for colleges throughout the world will start with changing the SAT, a necessary change for the near future and now.
Where all my friends had gone? What had been going on with my family? I had let my life become so consumed with this stupid boy that my grades suffered, my relationship with my parents was a constant struggle, and I had completely shut off any hang time with my friends.
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We can always move on, go to bigger better things, learn and not make the same mistakes. When you lose a race, all light-headed, red in the face, and mad you didn’t kick harder at the end, you get up push yourself to prepare for the next one.