The Bias in Standardized Testing
I don’t know about you, but I hated taking the SAT. I also hated the idea that my score, a singular number, had so much weight in the question of whether or not I would get into college. Although standardized tests have been used by admissions officers for generations, they are not a fair way to evaluate college applicants because they significantly disadvantage students of lower socioeconomic statuses, lessening their chance to be competitive in the college admissions game.
In the introduction of her book Weapons of Math Destruction, Cathy O’Neil writes about how Weapons of Math Destruction, WMDs, are often built in ways that unfairly favor certain groups over others. She goes on to write that WMDs “tended to punish the poor.” In this case, our WMD is a standardized test that attempts to reduce a students’ intelligence and problem-solving skills down to a single number and, like O’Neil wrote in her book, the poor are definitely punished.
If you’re anything like me, standardized tests were quite the learning curve. Aside from pure intelligence, timing and strategy were crucial to a high score. But how did we learn these skills? Tutors, prep class, practice tests, taking the exam over and over again… options that students from lower-class backgrounds don’t necessarily have. Tutors can cost upwards of $100/hr, and even taking the exam for a second time can be pricey. CollegeBoard, the infamous home of the SAT, informs us that most students receive a higher score on their second attempt at the exam than their first, but with a price tag of $68, a second attempt might be out of the question for some.
According to Abigail Hess, a journalist for CNBC, “students from families earning more than $200,000 a year average a combined score of 1714, while students from families earning under $20,000 a year average a combined score of 1326.” Just to emphasize how big this gap really is, a 1714 on the SAT puts you at around the 74th percentile of all test takers. A 1326, however, would put you at about the 31st percentile, making your score much less competitive when compared to other applicants.
It is clear that the poor are not given the same opportunities to succeed on standardized tests as their financially affluent counterparts, and thus these test scores should not be used as one of the main deciding factors that determines whether or not someone gets accepted into college.
