SAT Review Strengths

With college admissions relying so highly on these tests many bright and capable students are getting left with little options (Sternberg 7). These students are facing this because the ACT and SAT primary focus on a narrow segment of skills that are needed to become a person that makes significant differences to the world (Sternberg 7). College’s argue that the admission test give them a quick glimpse of what the students potential is because they do not have to time to individually evaluate each potential student. This may be true but we need a better way to distinguish a person’s abilities than just a simple score on a test.

     The SAT are standardized tests, formally called the Scholastic Aptitude Tests and are used by most colleges

Imagine a test capable of making or breaking a student's chances of getting into his or her dream college. Imagine a test score that can be easily influenced, but only through thousands of dollars worth of coaching. Now imagine that same test but biased towards certain crowds of students while also being incapable of accurately predicting their futures. Is this the test you want for colleges to use in order to distinguish students? This is the SAT—famous for the unnecessary pressure it presents to students as well as the unfair disadvantages it presents to many others. Since these SAT scores are extremely artificial, SAT tests are not an accurate predictor for future success.

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.

The SAT is a test that many feel helps the privileged. Many also believe that it is unnecessary and that it does not actually prepare students for college or the future. Charles Murray in the article, “Abolish the SAT” also believes that the SAT needs to be “abolished” and writes on why we do not need the SAT in a critical and vigorous manner.

The College Board and ACT nonprofit organizations, known for developing and administering the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and American College Testing (ACT) assessment respectively, represents higher education’s widely accepted college readiness determinant for prospective students. These examinations empirically measure a student’s grasp of reading, writing, and mathematics – subjects taught every day in high school classrooms. As a result, they typically constitute a significant proportion of the total entrance requirements for prospective students to relevant institutions of higher learning and denote a serious endeavor unto itself. Students commonly take one or both of these examinations during their junior or senior year of high school as dictated by an institution’s administrative guidelines, although most colleges now allow either test as part of their proprietary admission formulas. And since it turns out there exists subtle differences in the tests themselves, students should review research concluding certain individuals may be better candidates for maximizing performance on one examination versus another.

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.

The intended purpose of the College Board’s SAT is to show the academic potential of a student to colleges. However, this intent is not fulfilled, and the test favors those of higher income brackets. In fact, “About 30 percent of those who took the SAT were black, Hispanic or American Indian, groups whose scores have stubbornly remained lower than those of whites and Asians.” (The International Herald Tribune). Because those which are typically in lower income brackets have been statistically proven to average lower scores on the SAT, the test does not accomplish its intended purpose.

The following category discusses the reliability and validity of the SAT. Firstly, the reliability measures the consistency and steadiness of the SAT scores and validity measures how the test is being consumed. The SAT is a reliable test for the reason that if an individual takes the SAT multiple times he or she would receive comparable or higher scores each time the test is given to the individual due to the culture of the test. The SAT is valid since the test is designed to measure an individual cognitive ability and the achievement of students. Research has proved that cognitive test validities are generalizable and predictive of academic performance (Shen, Sackett, Kuncel, Beatty, Rigdon & Kiger, 2012). The SAT shows that more selective

While SAT participation rates vary widely from state to state these comparisons are misleading. In states where their colleges and university do not require students to take the SAT and rely more on the ACT, the SAT test takers population is smaller. For states where colleges and universities that require the SAT exam for admission, more students take the SAT hence showing an unbalance in states where the test is not widely used. States with the higher averages, will also be states that have less test-takers. The lower scoring states will have a higher number of test-takers. Comparing states with a lower number of test-takers, to states with a higher number of test-takers is unfair and

“The SAT in recent years has become the main assessment used in some states to measure how much high school students have learned” (Zinshteyn), it is big step into becoming a college a student since the year it was enacted in 1926. The SAT is a standardized test that measures your skills in both math and english, along with your writing, it is mainly taken between junior and senior year of high school and is a major impact on deciding your college admittance depending on your college. A new SAT was enacted recently claiming to level the playing field for all students who deserve and are willing to work hard for en education, “The overall topics have not changed the SAT still quizzes you on math, english and writing. The only difference is that the new SAT combines reading and writing into one section within the SAT”

If you are considering enrolling for college in the United States, then chances are that you will have to take the SAT exam. This is a standardized exam, administered to all people considering joining college in a given year. Their respective scores in the exam are deemed to be indicative of their respective capabilities to cope with college work, and to benefit from college education. But many times, SAT scores have relevance beyond college entry: as an interview question, for instance, some employers have been known to ask prospective employees about their SAT scores. But even assuming that the relevance of SAT scores ends at college entry, we all know how much of a difference, in terms of life opportunities, the college one attends makes.

This study also stated that, “every standardized test has a certain “error of measurement” which means that a given score could actually be off by several points in either direction. High stakes, however, have single scores as the cut-off point. Those scores do not account for the inaccuracies that all test publishers acknowledge”(azstandards). There have been many studies in which students take the same test on different days, and their score varies greatly. High stakes testing does not give any consideration to these errors.

The truth concerning the predictive abilities of the SAT and ACT is clear; there are simply superior methods to evaluate potential college success. College admissions need to rely more heavily on factors such as High School GPA and SAT Subject and AP Tests, as these pieces of data contain a higher level of predictive power than SAT and ACT scores. Through the comparison of subject-specific tests and GPA to broad standardized tests, it is evident that the principles of our education system must be reinvented.

The test is expensive to take, especially when you include, fees for sending scores, retrieving scores, registration fees, and the fact that many students take the test at least twice. With the ridiculous fees you have to pay just to take this test, most people and the college board push for test prep.Which is not free. A few years ago, Daniel Riseman, a college test prep tutor in Westchester County, New York, reported that, “one year he took in $220,000, he says, ‘Sometimes I work seven days a week and it just never stops, but it’s good money,’” (Briody). For many people across America it could be very difficult to put food on the table and provide things like home internet for school work. So it is easy to see how a child coming from a struggling income is not as equally prepared for or even introduced to the SAT before taking it. The SAT is set up in a specialized way, so it is important that students are exposed to and taught some basic test taking strategies, something that many schools do not include, because of the rigid standards they already have in place to teach their core subjects. On average, there is a 400 point gap on overall SAT scores between children who come from a family who make less than $20,000 a year and those that make $200,000 or over a year (Goldfarb). Unfortunately, in America it is very difficult to guarantee