High School Students Across America

The SAT examination is mostly in today’s world of academics, a requirement of getting accepted into collage. Not only is it enough to take the examination but the student has to pass with an average score or above to even have his/her application be considered. Many students around the world recognize this and therefore

Standardized testing has been around since the early 1900’s. Today, it determines a high school student’s future. Every year juniors in high school start to prepare months in advance for the SAT’s and ACT’s. Along with the test itself, comes stress that is not necessary. The debate of standardized tests defining a student’s academic ability or not has become a recent popular controversial topic. Many colleges and universities are starting to have test optional applications because they are realizing that a single test score does not demonstrate the knowledge of a student. There is more value in a student that should rule an acceptance or rejection. In the article, “SAT Scores Help Colleges Make Better Decisions” Capterton states, “The SAT has proven to be valid, fair, and a reliable data tool for college admission” (Capterton). Capterton, president of the College Board, believes that the SAT’s and ACT’s should be used to determine a student’s acceptance because it is an accurate measure. What Capterton and deans of admissions of colleges and universities don’t know is the abundant amount of resources upper class families have for preparation, the creative talents a student has outside of taking tests, and the amount of stress they put on a 17 year old.

Einstein once said, “If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Likewise, if a poor test-taker is judged by their SAT score, they could be forced to attend an inadequate institute of higher education. For decades, the SAT has been “the test” that makes or breaks a student's chances of getting into their top college. Generally, the privileged populace do well, but minorities and women do not come out as strong and are therefore limited to college choice. The SAT has proven to be an unsuitable, biased method for predicting success of students in college.

For many years, standardized tests have been a pillar of college admissions. Students are persuaded to take the Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) or the American College Test (ACT) because colleges believe the scores can predict an applicant’s academic success after high school. However, an increasing number of colleges have made reporting test scores optional due to inconsistencies with the tests, many of which have been emphasized by students. These inconsistencies and other problems with test distribution have led to increasing demands for standardized testing to be reformed or become optional in the admissions process. Standardized testing should be eliminated as a criterion for college applicants because the tests have made education less significant, have made scores vary among students with similar academic abilities, and have not contributed a noticeable improvement to children’s intelligence.

In 2011, Jen Wang was finishing up her freshman year at Connecticut College. As a young girl growing up in New Jersey, Jen took her first SAT when she was in the sixth grade, long before other students her age would even start to think about college. Jen said that test preparations for standardized tests, like the SAT, took up most of her free time that could have been used to do other things (Billy). The SAT’s early intent was to open doors of higher education to students without traditional credentials, but now this test is held at high esteem, the biggest indicator of college success (Mulugetta). Although standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT are used to “level the playing field” for students across the country, these tests add little

By now, everyone has come to the conclusion that SAT is a flawed system. The test is designed to determine the future of high school students. Its job is to capture a snapshot of what a student has learned over the course of their academic career. Unfortunately, this is not what happens. Instead of treating a student’s score as just a snapshot, colleges treat a student’s score as their complete academic intelligence. What the system fails to realize is that not all students are good test takers. A student could study for weeks, but when the curator says “You may begin” their mind goes blank. Furthermore, the education system has become too dependant on the SAT to calculate a student’s intelligence. The real emphasis should be on the student’s GPA, essays, extracurriculars, volunteer work, and how much they challenged themselves. Focusing on these aspects allows the college to review an applicant’s work ethic.

Every student planning on going to college must take the SAT in order to receive scholarship money or to be accepted into most institutions of higher learning. The test was first introduced in 1926 and was adapted from a general IQ test for army recruits (“SAT History - The Evolution of the SAT”). It was used as a test to determine the intelligence of the soldiers. Now, it is a widely feared test that essentially predicts a student’s future. The scores can determine what path a student takes.

Standardized tests give students who are better test takers an advantage over those who are not. An American association known as Posse Scholars gives students who excelled in school the opportunity to retake the SAT if their scores were not expected. “Posse Scholars' combined median reading and math SAT score is only 1,050, while the median combined score at the colleges Posse students attend varies from 1,210 to 1,475. Nevertheless, they succeed. Ninety percent of Posse Scholars graduate -- half of them on the dean's list and a quarter with academic honors” (Rosenberg). Posse has a goal of eliminating the gap between students’ scores on the SAT. They choose students all around America who excel in academics but didn’t score exactly how they wanted to have another chance in conquering the test. This way, gaps in SAT scores will be a reflection of a student’s work in school rather than someone choking up on a

In America, a child is expected, as early as the age of five years old, to start taking tests that will measure their skills and determine if they are ready to move on to the next level of their education. This concept of testing in the United States is not new or uncommon. Standardized achievement tests have been used since the 1800s. In the beginning of the 20th century, there were many acclaimed colleges, and a few universities, all across the nation. Unfortunately during this time there was no systematic assessment to test the abilities or knowledge of the possible incoming students, because of this the College Board was created. Soon after the SAT or the Scholastic Aptitude Test came about. Before this type of standardized testing, individual

According to Zwick’s research, “Academic researchers investigate the fairness of the SAT based on how well it predicts college grades for each racial group” (321). Rather than arguing for racial bias on the SAT like Lemann, Zwick argues that such bias does not exist. Unlike Lemann, she does not believe that the SAT underestimates racial subgroup’s scores, rather, she claims “ [that] SAT scores tend to predict higher college grades than were actually attained by African-American, Latin, and American Indian students and lower grades than were actually attained by Asian American and white students” (321). Zwick explains how the SAT helps minorities get into the college of their choice, not how it hinders them. In fact, in the UC system, “the main barrier of all ethnic groups in admissions is the failure to complete college preparatory courses” (324). Now she qualifies her argument by agreeing with Lemann on the way to successfully and efficiently integrate students of all ethnicities into colleges: “improve K-12 education so that college applicants will be better prepared for the SAT” (324). By making a strong, uniform high school curriculum, all students will be equipped with the core fundamentals of learning, which will better their chances of joining the elite. Like Lemann, she desires to help the meritocratic system become a fair system for all

In today’s day and age, the key to success is achieving a higher education after high school. The steps in which we take to graduate high school and attend college, where we will be furthering our education, is all about jumping through hoops. We spend 12 years of our lives in school— five years of elementary school, three years of middle school, and four years of high school. During these 12 years of school, we are subjected to many standardized tests to see if we are up to standards and to measure our achievements. Standardized testing doesn’t showcase every student’s potential or intelligence. Not all students test in the same ways, therefore they should not be treated as if they do. To help cater to students variances, the government should administer a new type of testing that varies upon the students abilities.

The next alternative recognizes the fact that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to standardized testing does not reflect the abilities of all demographics taking the test (NACAC, “Standardized Tests In Admission”). Despite this fact, the National Association for College Admission Counseling believes that to some degree, “Standardized tests are important predictors of students’ academic success” (NACAC, “Standardized Tests In Admission”). While the Commission supports the use of standardized tests, they believe that all students should be provided with the necessary preparation before taking the test.

Standardized tests can not accurately measure intellectual merit because racial and gender stereotypes interfere with the intellectual functioning of those taking the tests, according to Stanford Psychology Professor Claude Steele. The educational system in United States has been using standardized tests to evaluate the performance of students. The first documented achievement test took place in the period of 1840-1875. The earliest tests were meant for individual evaluation, but the results were used to compare schools and students. Even though there has been controversy about why it is so important for colleges to weigh their admissions on these tests that simply measures our academic abilities the day they take the test. Yet,

A shocking and disturbing trend that the public has always noted in standardized tests is that minority examinees tend to score lower on standardized tests than their White, male counterparts. This has caused academic scholars to research this topic more to figure out what is preventing minority examinees from doing as well as their White, wealthy and/or, male counterparts and, thus, not having access to some of the same opportunities. These standardized tests consistently put these students at a clear disadvantage and this is counter to the nation’s overall goal to improve diversity in all aspects of life. This essay will discuss specific factors that put minorities at a disadvantage when it comes to standardized tests and

As a society we have come to base our view of intelligent high schoolers off of a basic pen-and-paper test. Students who receive higher scores on the SAT and the ACT are considered to be more intelligent and as a result are usually admitted to more selective schools than those who receive lower scores.