Originally Published in the March 21st Print Publication
College readiness. Every year, millions of high school students slave away behind their notebooks and computers in pursuit of this elusive, mystical value; because, according to the College Board, it is best measured by the SAT. The SAT is one of a few standardized tests that all highschool students are encouraged to take before graduation. It measures your ability on reading, writing, and math skills up to Algebra 2. It’s been around and troubling despondent sophomores and juniors for around a century, no matter how many changes it goes through to reflect our times.
The SAT is run by College Board, an American nonprofit organization, and has been accepted by colleges and universities across America as an appropriate indicator of generalized intelligence and academic skill. However, the SAT is taken by international students as well. This means sections like the Reading and Writing sections aren’t entirely applicable to some, at least when it comes to intelligence or academic skill. A lot of things can factor into an individual’s academic skill, like grade inflation/deflation, family circumstance, and issues with teachers or instructors. In fact, the idea of taking a test to directly measure anything is also questionable. There are many circumstances outside of skill and ability that can affect your ability to do well on the SAT. One such circumstance occurred recently with the March 8th SAT, where a glitch caused many students’ submissions went in early and ruined their scores.
As recompense, the College Board had to offer a makeup date for students affected. But this mistake does more than just illuminate the quality of the College Board—it directly affects the morale of the students taking this test. The truth is, taking the SAT is long and boring, and it’s difficult to sit through one, much less two in succession. There is no doubt that the equating will be affected by the large number of students whose scores have been cancelled, and this staggering will also affect the reliability of the March SAT test scores. The test-retest of the SAT is extremely important, especially bearing in mind that colleges will have no knowledge of specific circumstances during a test. However this incident is almost negligible compared with the mental stress that the SAT itself causes.
One of the biggest factors contributing to academic downtrends is stress. Not eustress but distress, in which cortisol spikes can be correlated with an almost 80 point drop in your SAT score. Studying for the SAT (while working for seven other classes) is very difficult. It sucks up free time and takes up school days–and that’s if you’re primarily self-studying. Many individuals opt for expensive SAT tutoring, which, while it prepares you well, wedges another economic gap in the SAT’s testing. Tutoring no doubt helps students succeed on the SAT, and that discrepancy weighs heavily on today’s world of inclusivity.
The truth is, college admissions should be dictated by what you achieve. The SAT is outdated, like most standardized testing, and is unnecessarily difficult and problematic for many. Students should be judged on what we actually achieve, and not how we score on a test. If impact is what matters, we all should be given the chance to show it by what we do, what we can become, and what we can achieve.