The SAT: How Did One Test Get So Much Power?

As an alumni interviewer for my alma mater, I get to meet some of Rockland County’s brightest students each year. I am amazed by their accomplishments; they are overachievers at every level. Sadly, despite all of that, one of my most memorable interviews was when a super-bright girl, with an intense course load and wonderful extracurricular accomplishments started crying as she sat on my couch. Why was she so upset? Because her SATs were not as high as she would like.

It was horrible. One test had the ability to, in her mind, take all of the hours she had spent studying and all of the athletics, community service and everything else she had done for four years and render her ineligible for the college of her choice.

In the past few months, I have gotten to take this journey toward college alongside my daughter. And the more I travel, the more I question how important society has made this one test.

The SAT originally stood for “Scholastic Aptitude Test.” Created in the early 1900s as a way to give universities an objective measure of students from different high schools, backgrounds and geographic areas, it is administered by an organization called The College Board. It was intended to be similar to an IQ test and measure a student’s intelligence and ability to learn and to give colleges one unbiased standard with which to judge applicants. In theory, this is terrific. Grades can differ from school to school or even teacher to teacher, so an “A” in one course might really be worth more than an “A” somewhere else. With a standardized test, all students were being judged on the answers to the same questions, no matter where in the country they lived.

But it’s still not a level playing field. The test has been accused of having a cultural bias, favoring whites. Some students have access to extensive preparation that others do not. When I was in high school, I took an SAT class at some small place—I can’t even remember the name and I practiced my analogies (which have since been removed from the test) with a computer program on an early PC. Some of my friends took Stanley Kaplan and got to go to their testing centers and practice on their computers. I took the test once, did well enough and applied to colleges.

Now, it is not atypical for a student to take a 12- to 16-week course, for three to four hours each week. That does not include the time spent on weekly homework, upping it to a possible eight hours a week spent on prep. The courses cost several hundred to a thousand dollars. Some students study with private tutors who meet weekly and can cost $80-$90 per session, with separate tutors needed for English and Math. They also give extensive homework. Eight hours a week for three to four months is a huge amount of time—all to prepare for a single test. Junior year is stressful and busy enough. Isn’t that time better spent on schoolwork, extracurriculars, a job or—call me crazy--just relaxing?

One could argue, well, don’t buy into it. No one says you have to do all of these things. I know plenty of people who have told me that their children didn’t prep at all. That’s great for those kids, but my kids aren’t confident test takers. If it’s a test that people say you can be coached on and given hints to make it easier, wouldn’t I want to make sure they are as prepared as they can be?

The truth is you never know why a child does or doesn’t get into a school. And there are stories of Harvard rejecting kids with 2400s (the highest score possible). My friend visited colleges who insisted SATs are a small part of the equation. My alma mater considers it one of six equal factors, along with GPA, extracurriculars, essay, recommendations and difficulty of program. But we visited a large state school who said that their criterion was 75% grades, 25% SATs. So if that school is your goal, than the SAT is no small deal.

I guess my concern is over all of the emphasis that is placed on this one thing. It is a disproportionate amount of time in a high school student’s life. While high SAT scores could possibly help students with weaker grades and improve how they look on their application, I would imagine in the majority of circumstances, the scores are pretty reflective of the rest of their transcript (meaning kids who do well in school score high on the test). Where it doesn’t seem fair is for the students like the one I interviewed. It has the potential to distract from everything else she has accomplished.

Some students opt to take the ACT, which tests knowledge in a different manner. But it’s still a test and you still need to prep for it. There are now several colleges that have moved away from requiring standardized tests. You can find a list of them at http://fairtest.org/. I think this is wonderful. Because it seems to me that the biggest winners from the standardized testing hype are The College Board, which charges $47 per test and encourages students to take it several times, and the test prep companies and tutors. None of this feels like it’s for the good of the student. Let’s give them their time back and eliminate standardized testing.

Shari Maurer of New City is an author and is coordinator of New City Patch's Moms Council.