On October 6th, many seniors and some juniors took the four hour standardized test that most American colleges require as part of an application: the SAT. Next Wednesday, all juniors and sophomores will follow suit by taking the Preliminary SAT (PSAT), a shorter form of the SAT. Though many colleges are questioning the importance of scores from these and other standardized tests, scores on them can still determine which college high school students attend and thereby influence the rest of their lives.
The SAT is described by the College Board, the company that administers the tests, as designed to assess “the critical thinking skills you’ll need for academic success in college.” The College Board created the test and other standardized tests to measure college readiness. “Colleges like to have some kind of standard,” says Dean Jacoby ‘88, Director of College Counseling.
Students React
Student reaction to the SATs is negative for the most part. John Whitney ’08 explained: “the SATs don’t necessarily indicate how intelligent someone is”. Another senior added: “kids in my class that clearly are not the same caliber students grade-wise, end up beating my SAT score by 100 points. It is not a good judgment of college readiness”. Some colleges are beginning to question the validity of the standardized tests as a good evaluation of college readiness to go along with this theory. Beginning with Bates, more than 740 colleges have made standardized testing optional, arguing that there is little reliable correlation between college success and SAT scores, and that many students who would make the most out of a college experience are being turned down because of poor testing.
The new writing section has made the SAT 3 hours and 45 minutes long in testing time. For many students this makes the test a marathon. “It’s a battle of attrition” said Whitney after taking the SAT on the 6th.
The SAT’s fairness is also currently under debate. There is a clear correlation between parents’ income and education and the performance of their children on standardized tests. Standardized tests seem to have a socioeconomic, racial, and gender bias, possibly hurting female students, students from ethnic minorities, and above all students from lower socio-economic backgrounds. The College Board has admitted the existence of this trend and has made some attempts to fix the problems. However, the improvements were minor, and the problem still remains. Standardized tests also marginalize slow and divergent thinkers who maybe just as likely to succeed at college, but will do worse on the tests. Also, students taking standardized tests can drastically improve their scores through extensive, and expensive, preparation. At first, the College Board denied this, but admitted the problem when the body of evidence increased. They have since come up with their own preparation method, and started providing information and practice questions online, indicating that they have fully accepted the problem and are making an effort to reduce bias.
Sophomores and Juniors start their standardized testing by taking the Preliminary SAT, which for Sophomores is all for practice, and for Juniors is the National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Sentiments are that this National Merit Scholarship is not that important relative to the SATs. In an interview with The News last fall, Mr. Jacoby stated: “it (the PSAT) doesn’t offer a lot of information to colleges that’s of real interest or use,”
This week, instead of the normal Saturday date, PSATs have been switched to the Wednesday after the Tuesday night special program. Junior Dan Fallahi exclaimed: It’s unfair that my only day to catch up on work and sleep was taken away for 3 hours of practice testing”. He went on to say: “It does, however, scare me how close the college process is for us (juniors).” Gaby Whitehouse ’10 complained “Standardized testing is too long and mentally exhausting”.
Students at Choate are required to take the SAT at least once and the PSAT twice. In preparation for these intimidating tests, some students are taking SAT preparation courses at Choate provided by Kaplan testing services. These courses are expensive, and consist of 12 two to three hour classes, some of which are full length SAT tests. Some students choose the less expensive and less structured method of using a review book to prepare. However, almost every Choate junior or senior is preparing for these tests, trying to get an edge over other students in the college admissions process. The path of preparation to take is purely dependent on the individual student. The Kaplan course provides structure and motivation for students who need it, but the book provides a more flexible approach for those who can benefit from it. Chetan Kumar ’09, who took the Kaplan test preparation, said, “I would recommend a shorter course,” and indicated that though the course helped, most of it was a waste of time.
Do SATs Still Matter?
SAT scores are still an important part of the college admissions process for many schools. Dean Jacoby says that standardized test scores, primarily SATs and ACTs, are rated as the 2nd or 3rd most influential portion of a student’s application, beaten sometimes only by the transcript. He said that the largest state schools will generally place the heaviest weight on standardized testing scores because they can’t spend as much time evaluating each student. Though many colleges don’t require the SATs, the majority of them still do. Each college puts a different and often unpredictable weight on standardized testing. Standardized tests continue to be a very stressful and important part of the college admissions process for high school students.
Said Dan Thomas ’08 “The standardized testing process was straining on me but I am wholeheartedly glad that it is over with”.
