You’ve been there. We’ve all been there. You wake up way too early on a Saturday morning and drive to school. You walk in with properly sharpened pencils, your approved calculator, and maybe even some snacks. Or, if you’re like me, you walk in with Starbucks that is promptly confiscated upon walking into your assigned classroom. You sit at your assigned seat and listen to instructions read by a monotone-voiced teacher who doesn’t want to be there. Your personal variation of the test is handed to you and then it begins: three hours of answering questions that might be the sole reason you are admitted into your dream school.

It’s the ACT. For those who don’t know, the ACT is a standardized test comprised of four to five parts. The sections include English, Math, Reading, Science, and an optional Writing portion. There are a total of 215 questions on the exam with 175 minutes to answer. Of course, it’s divided between the four sections, with 75 questions to answer in 45 minutes for the English section, 60 questions in 60 minutes for the Math section, and 40 questions in 35 minutes for both the Reading and Science questions. For the optional Writing portion, one must write an essay in 40 minutes. You get the point; lots of questions and not a lot of time.

Those are just numbers. I can’t make you take the ACT right now to prove to you how fast the time goes as you rush to try and remember how to do the Geometry that has mysteriously disappeared from your memory.

College admissions committees look at many factors when it comes to admitting students into a school. Class rank, high school GPA, high school course load (including difficulty and grades), community involvement, extracurricular activities, and application essays all play a crucial role. Standardized test scores are also included on this list, but it is truly unfair to judge a student based on his or her ability to read four long passages and answer 40 questions about said passages in 35 short, stressful minutes.

I’ll tell you a story about when I took the ACT in April of 2014. It was an unseasonably warm day in Missouri. I could’ve been outside enjoying the weather but instead I was at my high school taking the ACT. Let me tell you, I was pumped. Throughout the previous six weeks, I went to an ACT tutor every Saturday and had mastered the ACT strategies and hacks. I had reviewed Geometry and Trig, general English rules, and reminded myself that the Science portion is basically just reading and analyzing graphs and charts. The first two parts, English and Math, went great. During the break, though, the teacher in the room opened the windows, you know, because it was a nice day. This would have been fine if a high school baseball game wasn’t going on a couple hundred yards away. Throughout the whole Reading portion, all I could focus on was a voice booming “AND UP TO BAT IS NUMBER 18, SOPHOMORE MR. BLAH BLAH BLAH.” or “WHAT A GREAT CATCH BY NUMBER 7, JUNIOR…” I was 100% distracted by an outside force, and surely I wasn’t the only one this happened to.

When I got my scores back the next month, I was disappointed. Not only at the teacher who opened the windows, but I was disappointed that my parents spent money on ACT tutoring to raise my score, yet my Reading score was in the teens because of a baseball game nearby. My family was very understanding and I signed up for the next ACT in June.

Not everyone is that fortunate. ACT tutoring is pricey and for obvious reasons, not many students can afford it. Even the ACT itself is expensive at $39.50 for the test without writing and $56.50 for the test with writing. The late fee is $25, and if you schedule your test and realize you have a conflict, it is $24 to change the date. It is $12 to send an ACT College Report from the ACT website to each college to which you are applying. The SAT, similar to the ACT, is the same way.

Even still, colleges throughout the entire country require this in order for a student to further his or her education.

The importance for taking the ACT has continued to grow year after year. For example, I asked my mom how many times she took the ACT. She told me once. Then I asked once of my friends, and she told me she took it about ten times—nearly $400 spent to perfect this standardized exam in hopes to achieve a high enough score to stand out amongst other college applicants.

Colleges should not want students who had just a "good test day" their junior year of high school and achieved a high score on a standardized test that means nothing more to the students than a number on an application.Colleges should want bright students. They should want students who are innovative and passionate, students who take on new initiatives and new perspectives. They should want students who will work hard and graduate as inspiring individuals.