Today, many hopeful high school students apply to his or her dream school. These students have solid GPAs, but not so great ACT and SAT test scores. So, these students have been rejected or wait-listed because their scores were not good enough for those dream colleges. People may say that colleges should not expect so much. However, the tests are very challenging. The test makers should not make the tests so difficult. Also, high schools do not prepare their students well enough. Acceptance to a good college is truly difficult; standardized tests should be recreated to truly demonstrate an applicant’s knowledge, and high schools should do a better job preparing students for the rigors of testing and college. Colleges think that coping with the stress of high school on top the admissions process is easy for the students. Above everything, including GPA, SAT and ACT test scores are very important. Standardized testing is so inaccurate of students’ true mental abilities (“GPA, SAT, ACT… RIP”). Standardized tests cannot truly show how smart a student really is. “Most standardized tests are designed to have students come up with the same answers” (“GPA, SAT, ACT… RIP”). Colleges will not really know students’ intellect until they actually accept them and see what the students can do. On top of challenging entrance exams, high schools do not do the best job of preparing students for these tests and college. Earning the right credits in high school makes it much easier to get into
Anyone who has ever taken the ACT or the SAT knows how stressful and difficult the tests are. Students are forever judged because of the scores the receive by colleges and peers. The ACT/SAT are standardized tests that are meant to calculate what students have learned in previous years of high school. Colleges then use this score to determine whether a student will succeed in college. Specific problems with this process include the fact that high schoolers are extremely busy and may have other things on their minds, the tests require brutal test prep, the test can cause stress and anxiety, and the tests do not accurately gage a student’s college success. For these main reasons, students should not be required to take the ACT/SAT to get into college.
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.
Standardized testing has been ruling over the lives of students, making or breaking them in their education without fair judgement. Tests like the SAT and the ACT count for way too much when applying to colleges, which in turn limits the student 's capabilities to thrive in an environment that would benefit them. There are many problems within a standardized test that deems them to be unreliable as a true test of knowledge. Although designed to test groups of students on intelligence, standardized testing neglects to fairly acknowledge the abilities of each unique student which reflect their true capabilities.
Many know the stressful feeling of having to take the ACT. The exam room fills slowly with worried faces and remains quiet until the test stars. Students grasp their pencils tightly, their palms sweating with the thought of their future at stake with this single test. In order to get into any college, an ACT or SAT score is required. These required scores for admission vary from school to school which can make it difficult for every student to attend their dream school. A single test will determine who can and cannot attend a certain college. With this system, it can deny students with potential in certain fields a place in a college because they might not test well. College admission should not be based on
The purpose of this proposal is to examine current and future Iowa State University admissions decisions processes. At the present time most colleges, including Iowa State use a combination of standardized test scores, high school class rank, high school grade point average, and essays to make decisions on admissions. All of the above are good determinants of a student’s possible success in college, except standardized test scores. Standardized tests discriminate against minorities and are not a good overall indicator of a student’s potential. For these reasons and others, Iowa State should not use standardized test scores when making admissions
Colleges can consider high school GPA as the alternative for test scores. Almost all of the schools during admission completely overlook high school GPA. William C. Hiss, a principal investigator of Defining promise, declares “High school grades matter, and they matter a lot” (Maitre, par.2). It is not fair for many students like Ms. Casimir, a sophomore attending Wake Forest University, who scored 1580 in SAT. This was “an embarrassment” as she graduated high school “with a 4.0” (Simon, par.10). Her dreams to go to “Cornell” and “Davidson” was shattered but yet she was admitted by the “Wake Forest University which gave her full ride without seeing her SAT score and she has 3.2 GPA now” (Simon, par.10). It’s not a miracle as diligence and
Education is saturated with standardized testing. Standardized testing is throughout your whole educational career, starting with the MAP test and ending with an ACT or SAT test. The curriculum in the classroom is molded to fit test taken by each student while teachers teach to the test. According to Council of Great City Schools, “as of 2016, the average student in America takes a staggering 112 mandatory standardized tests before graduating high school.” Standardized testing is defined as same test student take under similar conditions with criteria for multiple choice or short answer questions. College are examining on test score to decide student’s future in education. “Unfortunately we cannot accept you due to your lack of testing ability” is the last thing any college student wants to hear. High School students, who already have responsible for choosing a college, a career, and focussing on school work, have to focus on one more thing that should not even be factored to college, standardized test like the ACT or SAT. If you score high enough on the MAP test, you have opportunities to achieve in advanced classes in future classes that could help for college. If
From first grade to college, every student faces the nightmare: a test. The groans, rolled-back eyes and anxiety are all symptoms of a test-stressed generation. However, high school students are impacted the most because colleges do not look at test scores comprehensively. They only look at the high scores and ignore the low scores. Ever since the College Board was created in 1899, colleges have used the Board’s number one test to assess a high school student’s abilities. The colleges are only concerned with their reputation, not about the quality of a student’s academic strength.
When you take a standardized test, you can show colleges what you are capable of. If you were taking a test that decided whether or not you went to your dream college, you would want to do the best you could, right? Showing what you can do on these tests are very important because it can determine whether or not you get into the school you want. Having said this, in order for you to show colleges what you can do, you have to do your best on the tests. Colleges use the test scores to award scholarships to students with a high enough score. Not only is your
No one’s future should be determined by a test. Many colleges accept students based on their test scores. Standardized test does not accurately measure student’s ability to think or learn. These tests are unfair to bad test takers, people with test anxiety, and people that weren’t encouraged to excel.
Should one's college acceptance be based greatly on their standardized college admission test scores? Though these tests are a way of measuring an individual’s knowledge to then compare the student’s score to all of the other applicant’s scores, there are many downsides of making the submission of the SAT or ACT test scores a requirement when applying to colleges. This paper focuses on both the disadvantages and advantages of making standardized college admission test scores mandatory as well as the value and history behind these tests. While some may not want to recognize the problem behind making these tests mandatory, it is safe to say that it is not going to go away, especially with many colleges slowly jumping on the bandwagon and making the submission of standardized test scores optional.
Scoring a 1580 on the SAT and 35 on the ACT would grant a free pass to any of the Ivy League schools, but that’s just one of the requirements to be accepted. There’s others things, such as volunteering, GPA, sports, clubs, extracurriculars, and much, much more that colleges tend to look at when guaranteeing admission. But, the main crisis that needs to be looked upon is, whether standardized testing is effective in education, in which case, it is. Standardized testing is given to every state, where students are given the same questions on a test, but is tested by their individual ability to use their knowledge of learning to answer each question. In which, colleges would be able to compare each student by their score, received by a simple statistical
Andrew Shue once said, “Life is the most exciting opportunity we have. But we have one shot. one graduate from college once, and that 's it. one 're going out of that nest.” Majority of students want to attend college but are hesitant. How can they get graduate from college that one time if they are never given the opportunity. Prohibited, whether because of grades or the cost, they still have an obstacle that stops them from attending. Some feel that students were not able to attend college because of ACT and SAT scores. Colleges are considering changing the college admission requirement. This means not looking at standardized test scores. Studies show that the test is biased towards a specific demographic group and race. Requirements for
Tomorrow was the big day. The day that every student despised, but came every year. The problem that transcends national borders: standardized testing. Before I knew it, it was the final week, and time was running out. In my case, the Connecticut state test, the CMT, was in just two days. More than nervousness, there was a cloud of confusion surrounding this test for us students. Some said that preparation and study are necessary for this test, while most thought just the opposite. Some people were even saying that the scores for these tests somehow will affect our progress in school. Looking back, I don’t remember the test being all that hard, but it didn’t make sense to me. How could this one test, filled with questions that require shallow thinking and zero creativity, show the state the performance of my hard-working teachers, or the individuality and strengths of each student? Or on a larger scale, every student in the entire state?
What’s your ACT score? Students are branded with their ACT and SAT scores in society. Today’s education is heavily leaning on standardized tests. An average students takes over one hundred standardized tests in his or her school years. Standardized tests are used to measure and test the knowledge of students in a particular subject in a quick and easy way. These tests are also used to see the extend and skill of students for qualifications of certain colleges and scholarships. Some of these standardized tests include the ACT and the SAT. But do these test fully measure the strength of knowledge these students have practiced for their whole lives? Standardized testing does not allow students to fully and completely show their strength in education and instead results in breaking down students mentally and physically.