The SAT “is a sternly worded dinosaur of a test, graded in an arbitrary manner with outdated equipment…the only reason people take it is because they have to.” Children begin taking standardized tests in pre-kindergarten and by the time they are high school seniors, they’ve taken an average of 112 standardized tests (Strauss 1), all with one purpose: to measure and quantify intellectual ability. However, there is a growing mountain of evidence that suggests the SAT is a poor measurement of potential college success. The SAT is regarded as one of the more important tests, as it is used primarily to measure a student’s potential college success. For high school students the SAT is the gatekeeper of the future. It is an unavoidable hurdle for
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During that time, national college rankings were released and prestigious colleges began competing for the top positions on the list (Wong pars. 17-19), prompting colleges to favor admission of those that would improve their rank. This practice has led us to the current college admission process that requires a laundry list of qualifications, with SAT scores at the top of the list. Although, the current college admission process has exceedingly focused on students ' SAT scores and is widely considered a merit-based system, that has not always been the case. Prior to the 1950s, college admission was ethnocentric, reliant on legacies and wealth. Some students were even outright blocked from applying to a school based on race or socioeconomic background, no matter how high their test scores were. Compared to the exclusive “old boy’s clubs” of pre WWII, the merit-based system was a welcome change to higher learning and a victory for equality. In the post World War II era, college admission first began its evolution into the merit-based system we have today, where high grades and test scores are both a pre-requisite and a deciding factor; the remainder of a student’s repertoire only act as tiebreakers between two qualified applicants. With the merit system, “the United States has sought to put a college education within the reach of anyone with the talent …show more content…
SAT scores are still a prominent factor for many school’s requirements. This prompted applicants to focus on the criteria that most influences the admission decision-SAT scores. Lloyd Thacker, founder of The Education Conservancy, states that “the admission process today…allocates opportunity by deciding who gets into where [and] allocates [admission] values by determining what matters in preparing for, applying to, and selecting a college” (Lloyd Thacker qtd. in Wong par. 9). Privileged individuals use the colleges’ most allocated values as criteria, and focus on that which most influences the admission decision, SAT scores. This emphasis on SAT scores has distorted educational priorities and practices to the point where students at some schools begin studying for the SAT in 6th grade in an attempt to get ahead of the competition (Wong par. 2). The distortion comes from the mass majority of students manic to get into highly-selective, exclusive schools that only have room for about 10% of applicants. Wong does point out that this mania may only directly affect students competing for spots at the most elite schools, but the mentality of access to an exclusive club is something that all schools want to emulate, if only to bolster their application rates, and by proxy, their national ranking. (Wong Absurdity of College admission, Cont’d. par. 2) Those wealthy children
During that time, national college rankings were released and prestigious colleges began competing for the top positions on the list (Wong pars. 17-19), prompting colleges to favor admission of those that would improve their rank. This practice has led us to the current college admission process that requires a laundry list of qualifications, with SAT scores at the top of the list. Although, the current college admission process has exceedingly focused on students ' SAT scores and is widely considered a merit-based system, that has not always been the case. Prior to the 1950s, college admission was ethnocentric, reliant on legacies and wealth. Some students were even outright blocked from applying to a school based on race or socioeconomic background, no matter how high their test scores were. Compared to the exclusive “old boy’s clubs” of pre WWII, the merit-based system was a welcome change to higher learning and a victory for equality. In the post World War II era, college admission first began its evolution into the merit-based system we have today, where high grades and test scores are both a pre-requisite and a deciding factor; the remainder of a student’s repertoire only act as tiebreakers between two qualified applicants. With the merit system, “the United States has sought to put a college education within the reach of anyone with the talent …show more content…
SAT scores are still a prominent factor for many school’s requirements. This prompted applicants to focus on the criteria that most influences the admission decision-SAT scores. Lloyd Thacker, founder of The Education Conservancy, states that “the admission process today…allocates opportunity by deciding who gets into where [and] allocates [admission] values by determining what matters in preparing for, applying to, and selecting a college” (Lloyd Thacker qtd. in Wong par. 9). Privileged individuals use the colleges’ most allocated values as criteria, and focus on that which most influences the admission decision, SAT scores. This emphasis on SAT scores has distorted educational priorities and practices to the point where students at some schools begin studying for the SAT in 6th grade in an attempt to get ahead of the competition (Wong par. 2). The distortion comes from the mass majority of students manic to get into highly-selective, exclusive schools that only have room for about 10% of applicants. Wong does point out that this mania may only directly affect students competing for spots at the most elite schools, but the mentality of access to an exclusive club is something that all schools want to emulate, if only to bolster their application rates, and by proxy, their national ranking. (Wong Absurdity of College admission, Cont’d. par. 2) Those wealthy children