In my junior year of high school, my dad told me that it was better to get good grades than do well on my SAT. He said that if I did well on standardized tests but had poor grades, it would show that I was smart, but didn’t have a good work ethic. I had no information other than my dad’s opinion to go off of, but I clung to it. I was terrified that I wouldn’t perform well on my SAT and my dreams of going to college would be dashed. Since then, I have found my dad’s advice to be somewhat true, depending on the college. At the very least, college admissions do not usually make decisions based on one factor alone. Some colleges do not require test scores, or regard them as very important. Other schools won’t even look at applications unless you have attained a certain test score. The idea behind this is understandable. If a university wants to maintain an elite status, then they want to admit only highly intelligent, accomplished students. On the surface, standardized tests seem like a fair, unbiased way of measuring a student’s intelligence. In reality, these tests perpetuate a history of racist standards and work against people from lower socioeconomic brackets. Because of this, the SAT is once again undergoing a huge makeover, but is it enough?
The idea of standardized is not a new one, however, its history is a dark one. The modern SAT has roots in World War I, when the president of the American Psychological Association, Robert Yerkes asked to be involved in the war effort. Yerkes, and others, wanted a way to test incoming soldiers, so that they could be assigned duties accordingly. Most soldiers were given what was known as the Army Alpha test, but anyone who who could not read or write in English was given the Army Beta test. The Beta test did not include text, however, it still relied heavily on American cultural references. As a result, most immigrants scored incredibly low. Afterwards, this test was used as proof that some ethnicities were definitively more intelligent than others.
One of the administers of the Alpha and Beta tests was a young man by the name of Carl Brigham. Brigham had long since been interested in the idea of intelligence testing as he was also a large proponent of the eugenics movement. He believed that intelligence testing could be used to prove one race mentally superior, and then slowly eliminate the inferior races. After the war, Brigham adapted the Army Alpha test and began using it for college admissions exams. Eventually his work was adopted by Harvard, and subsequently the College Board, through the efforts of his friend Henry Chauncey. Initially, these tests were used only for students who were eligible for scholarships. This was part of an admirable effort to provide affordable education to intelligent students who could not afford it otherwise. However, this effort was somewhat misguided, as the test was designed by highly educated, affluent men. Much of the language used was biased from the beginning.
By 1942, the College Board adopted Brigham's Scholastic Aptitude Test as a general college entrance exam. Friendly reminder that Brigham was the not so friendly supporter of human eugenics. Of course, the test has been re-written many times since it's original publication by Brigham. These changes include adding and omitting different sections, as well as how many tests are offered every year. However, no matter how many times it has been revised in the past 74 years, it has still failed to be an impartial test. Year after year, the same demographic of students has continued to outperform peers, despite comparable grades. This is not entirely the fault of the test itself. Since the SAT has gained popularity, many companies have taken advantage of the opportunity to make some extra money. Classes are held, review books are sold, private tutors are hired. All of these boast to benefit the students who are to take the test, however, only certain students can benefit from these extra accommodations. The students that can afford them.
Critics and supporters of the SAT go back and forth on the issues presented from the SAT. The College Board conducted a study which demonstrated that the SAT served as an accurate predictor of freshman grades in college, despite socioeconomic status. This only addresses students who have gotten into college though. Other studies show that the SAT can indeed inhibit less advantaged students from attending a college, and argue that test-optional standards are the best way to compensate for this. Regardless of which studies hold the most truth, the SAT has decided to undergo some major changes once again. The biggest change is that the College Board has decided to add more context to their once obscure material. Their hope is that the tests will now reflect Common Core standards, which is something that all students are exposed to, rather than archaic vocabulary.
These changes may be a step in the right direction, however, they will likely invite their own host of problems. The idea of Common Core standards usually garner much criticism themselves. Though they are meant to be universal across classrooms, this cannot always be guaranteed. There is also concern with the very format of testing. Some students are not good test takers, no matter where they are from. And this is not just an excuse. Some psychologists, such as Howard Gardner, theorize that there are multiple intelligences that people can have, some lending themselves to traditional testing more than others. Some people may excel in other areas though, such as performance, which could still lead to great success, but is hard to measure on a standardized test. These problems could still lead towards unequal opportunities for students looking to go to college.
I have argued that the SAT is far from perfect, however, I must admit that this article is far from perfect either. The SAT is not a good overall indicator of intelligence, especially when scores are reviewed by people who have no context about the taker. However, that does not mean that the people who do well on the SAT don't deserve their high scores. Many people who do well are intelligent, hard working people. No one should feel guilty because they did well on the SAT. The issue is that the SAT does not paint a full picture, and cannot be heavily relied upon. Still, if the SAT and similar tests are abandoned, what will colleges look at when making admittance decisions? There are grades and extracurriculars, but are these enough? Are they fair? What about schools that have weighted GPAs, or schools that don't have enough funding to support many clubs and sports? Unfortunately, I don't have the answers to any of these questions. While I fully believe that the SAT cannot be used as the sole, or even more important, criteria for college admittance, I cannot deny that there is not a foolproof alternative at this point in time. The most that I can do is encourage the College Board and other educators to keep searching for substitutes, and remind everyone that you are not your test score.
