Why The Sat Is An Essential Part Of High School Students

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.

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.

SAT scores are inconsistent since they are directly correlated with average family income. Studies show that the average SAT score for students (out of 2400) in families earning up to $20,000 is 1326, whereas students in families earning over $200,000 receive an average score of 1714. This discrepancy is likely caused by unequal test preparation. Those with an average income of less than $20,000 tend to be families that cannot afford proper coaching, but those earning over $200,000 can afford as much coaching as they want. In other words, wealthier students are able to surpass the poorer students through “gaming the system”—bringing their score up hundreds of points through hundreds of dollars worth of private college counseling as well as through hefty amounts of practice tests. This also means that if

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.

In article “Growing income inequality threatens American education”, authors Duncan & Murnane (2014) speaks about a time where the division between an average mathematical and reading skills of the high- and low- income families had increased. In the study when looking at adolescents in the late 1960s it had shown that test scores of children from low-income families had fallen behind children of high –income households. The children had lagged behind by four-fifths of a standard deviation- this had represented how the SAT scores are measured on a scale and approximately 80 points went towards the SAT score. When comparing this scale to forty years later, there has been a gap that increased to about 50%. This is amounting to approximately 125 SAT-type points (p.10).As spoken in the article there are children from various income groups that have their struggles when it comes to achieving an education. The children who were from the low- income group had struggled when it come to achieving a high SAT score. It could be due to the student’s financial capability to achieve the high score required. There are centres that do provide extra help but at times, it does require paying out of ones pocket to join these classes. The government can provide a in –class course that is provided in the school system as a credit for these children

Along with the economic strain it puts on America, standardized tests put too much pressure on students to perform well on the tests. The students’ scores can affect their teachers and their community. Because of this pressure, students often times perform more poorly. As many as 150,000 students in New York had gotten permission from parents to opt out altogether due to how stressed they were becoming. Meanwhile, students across the country are choosing to opt out of these high-stakes tests. Students have also been doing so due to the lack of necessity of the

Since most SAT preparation courses are large businesses, their focus is primarily revolved around how much revenue they accumulate rather than the actual performance of their students. SAT preparation courses tend to sway parents by guaranteeing “high scores if you hand over upwards of one grand in fees (Lander).” Economically speaking, large educational organizations such as Kaplan, Princeton Review, and The College Board “have together created an industry with a 2013 revenue of $840.4 million dollars” through selling SAT study books, [releasing] online practice tests, and [offering] SAT study courses (Braverman).” Meanwhile, “private SAT tutors charge in excess of $100 per hour and classes from companies like Kaplan or Princeton Review run about $1,000 (Braverman).” The high cost of SAT test preparation puts students from the wealthier families at a massive advantage over poorer family. Richer families “have average test scores that are more than 300 points higher than students from the poorest families on average, according to the College Board (Braverman).” Although these statistics may not apply to every student, it follows a common trend and generalizes families based on economic class. If highly funded school had more advanced

With changes in the formatting of the SATs starting next September, preparation is more vital than ever. The revised SATs, in addition to encompassing different time constraints than the current ones, will require a greater and more sophisticated breadth of critical (or “evidence based”) reading and comprehension skills. They will also implement a difference in “score reporting” protocol. This means a more profound emphasis on essays, composite scores, and area scores (which are a kind of grading scale based on each category featured).

High school can be a tough time for everyone. For those planning to go to college, of course you're going to have to take the SAT or ACT, whichever your choice of college prefers. You also need a certain score to get accepted, along with if your grade point average is good enough and whatnot.

The SAT is administered to everyone the same way. You sign up for the test at a school that is different from yours and are seated in a room from about thirteen to 25

In the event the proposal, ACT and SAT standardized tests are essential to receive admission to major colleges and universities as well as finical aid. With these tests affecting many high school students’ future, test taking strategies and procedures should be taken into consideration. The factors involved with such preparations are already seen to be done by students outside of class, either by themselves or hiring a tutor. However, there are multiple problems for specific students to achieve a high score on these exams. The aim of the proposal is that high schools should offer an ACT and SAT preparation course for students. Conflicts and considerations of the aim will be needed in order to develop a persuading argument.

The most recent SAT was on October 19th, 2016 held at Chino Hills High School from early morning to roughly 1:00pm, specifically periods 1 to 4. Many students, specifically seniors were prepared and ready to take the exam with the math, reading, and writing portions. Students were very nervous and anxious for the big SAT test, but pulled through their nerves and made the most out of the provided SAT. Since Chino Hills High participated in the SAT School Day Program, all students were eligible to take the SAT with no worries of costs and fees. Some students took the SAT for their first time, or took the provided exam to improve their previous scores. With these scores, students would be able to see how much they know, or to use these scores

The SAT is a standardized test widely used for college and university admissions in the United States. It was first introduced in 1926, and its name and scoring system have changed several times throughout the years. Many students around the world that want to pursue post-secondary institutions in the US make it a point to write the SAT at least once in their high school career to better their chances of getting a higher score. This test has three parts to it – one reading, writing and one math. In order to achieve the best score that they can possibly get and be placed in the highest possible percentile, students may decide to attend SAT preparation classes starting from the early years of High/Middle School. The unfortunate reality of these extra preparation courses is that they are quite expensive, and due to this, they mostly cater towards to higher or higher-middle class families. Courses that provide extra preparation such as Ivy Global are not very affordable to many families and so students. According to many statistics and news reports, the higher the test taker’s family income, the higher their scores in the test. This has been a topic of great controversy as we have grown in the modern society