By the end of June, the finale of my junior year of high school, I will have taken three SATs, two PSAT/NMSQTs, four SAT Subject Tests and seven AP exams. With over 40 hours of experience, I have no problem feigning a smile before bubbling my name onto the answer sheet and reprobating myself for my years-old mistake of allowing College Board to give my email and address to any college that will pay.
My experience also causes me to wonder if my hours of testing are well spent for the future of my education.
My concern is common among ambitious high school students throughout the nation. AP courses are the top tier of many high school curriculums, meaning anyone competing for admission at a first-rate college must register for dozens of hours of AP tests in their high school careers. While AP courses can be useful for students wishing to excel and expand their education, sole dependence on APs as top classes too heavily commits high school teachers toward the opinion of a private New York-based company rather than local ideals.
College Board is a self-proclaimed non-profit organization that spends its financial gains to improve national education. Does their effort substantiate what students and their families must pay for testing though? An SAT with essay now costs $54.50, and that only pays to take a test on a Saturday morning and receive two numbers ranging from 200 to 800 within several weeks online. To actually see a detailed report and help chances of improving those scores requires a $11.25 score report, and students without internet access, who need to register by phone, are billed an extra $15. An AP test is $92 this year, making a year's course load a multi-hundred dollar investment for many students.
College Board shows little educational improvement despite all the money it receives from testing and selling test-prep materials. An MIT study found that SAT essay scorers favor length over quality. Dr. Les Perelman, the professor who evaluated the study, claims that College Board promotes poor writing skills by awarding wordy, often incorrect essay material.
The people who know education best should take control of college entrance exams; they should not rely on a private company like College Board. A coalition of top schools could easily construct an SAT replacement that would test for what colleges really want to see from high school students. Consequently, students would study what college professors and officials believe will prepare them for college rather than what is forced upon them by the middleman. Such a program would offer a wide array of ideas from educators across the nation, stressing the importance of a diversity of mind and improving fairness for all student backgrounds. The bridge linking high school and college is cluttered with piles of pricy exams, but collaboration provides opportunity to clear a lane.
