Ancillary 10: The Flaws of Standardized Testing
Ancillary 10
The issue of the efficacy of standardized testing as a means of determining future academic success is prevalent across the United States. The importance of such tests, specifically the SAT and ACT, is cemented in the minds of students as many renowned universities in the past have required the submission of these tests to be considered for admission. Thus, for a long time, colleges have used these tests to quantify performance by measuring student scores against a nationwide standard. However, this system has changed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only have the majority of universities in the US made it optional to submit these tests, but some, such as the University of California and Cal State systems, have abolished this requirement entirely.
Even with the resulting consequence of a lack of a way to “gauge college readiness”, as the US News puts it, these recent events may lead to the progression of a more refined college admissions system. The reason why admissions relying less on the SAT and ACT is beneficial is because these tests are fraught with underlying factors such as the socioeconomic status of the students and the types of questions that compose these tests, that cause the distribution of these scores to be skewed.
According to Forbes, “the average combined SAT and ACT test score grows with increasing family income.” In other words, there exists a direct correlation between students who come from more affluent backgrounds and higher scores on these exams. The primary reason for this is because families with higher income have more accessibility to tutoring services that cater specifically to increasing SAT and ACT scores. The long established significance placed on these tests created a market for tutoring services such as Elite Academy whose mission is to “boost your SAT scores and setting yourself up for college admissions success!”, for an exorbitant amount of money, “upwards of $3,000” (Dawn). For tests that pride themselves on being “fair and unbiased” they do not do a good job of being objective in light of these factors.
Not only does there exist an implicit bias towards students from wealthier families, but the SAT fails in its mission to “measure the aptitude, or natural ability, of high school students’’ according to PBS. The SAT is not a measure of intelligence at all. Instead, it is a mere indication of how well someone takes the SAT. If you think about it, how do students prepare for the SAT? students often repeatedly take practice tests over and over again, until they gradually get a higher score. To get better scores, students memorize the “tricks” of the SAT test questions. Take the Elite SAT Prep class, for example. When I enrolled in one of their SAT boot camps, I was given a binder full of tips and shortcuts to memorize in order to find answers more effectively. The majority of class time was spent analyzing the unique format of the SAT and its test questions. If the SAT truly tested natural aptitude, the scores would remain fairly constant among students.
So what can we do? Although the SAT provides a straightforward and swift way of determining candidates for admission to colleges, the negatives far outweigh the benefits. The SAT is ineffective, biased, and fails to truly measure the intellect of students. All in all, the SAT should be made optional or removed entirely from the college admissions process, indefinitely. It provides little benefit, save for efficiency and it only adds on to the stress and payments piled onto students who hope to attend college.
