SAT Changes: A high school senior’s perspective
Wrapping up my senior year of high school this spring, and still very much in the midst of the “college process,” I offer my take on the fuss over proposed changes to the SAT, and the changes themselves.
On the issue of the SAT, I find myself quite conflicted. In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need standardized testing: grades, recommendations, and application-specific essays would be enough for a college to make an informed decision about an applicant. Sadly, in the ever-competitive world of college admissions, especially for “coveted” spots at the most “selective” of “top schools,” SAT scores are one of the few tools admissions officers have to help them make their difficult decisions. They are a proverbial equalizer in a world of grade inflation, resumé padding, and college essays that are more thoroughly edited than best-selling books.
The Washington Post has a good chart of all the changes here.
Clearly one thing will change: students won’t feel as much pressure to cram in “arcane” and “recondite” vocabulary (see what I mean). They probably will also not spend as much time writing practice essays for contrived prompts, as we prior test-takers did. I think greater emphasis on data and evidence analysis along with reading comprehension is generally good. Incorporating more texts that are seen as central to the “global conversation” (i.e. MLK’s “I Have a Dream,” Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address”) will cast more light on the importance of global issues and attitudes, two areas that are sorely diminished by the current system.
Personally, I think I benefited from an emphasis on reading comprehension and vocabulary. I read a lot, mostly random things I’m interested in that have nothing to do with school. If a student reads a lot of good writing, studies a foreign language (or more than one), and takes a couple of practice tests, he or she will probably score higher on the SAT reading and writing sections than one who doesn’t.
While I worry that these changes may remove some of the challenge and high-level reasoning that made the SAT unique, I doubt they will have much effect on the college admissions process as a whole. Most things in life are relative, and so is the SAT. Though, if you can understand all of the statistical modeling they use to “normalize” scores, you deserve an 800 in math (in my book, anyway).
Whatever small changes the College Board makes to the SAT will have little effect on how “hard” it is. The test itself is not what makes it near impossible to get a perfect score, it’s the fact that every student “competes” against a million other people.
So, unless you can do better than about the next 2,000 test takers, a perfect score is not in your future — and that isn’t changing anytime soon.