Standardized testing has become a concept that lurks ominously in the minds of countless high school students across the United States. Not only has a good score on the SAT or ACT become a fundamental measure of a student’s success in high school, but it is also serves as one of the most important factors on a student’s college transcript.
Standardized testing has remained controversial since the first SAT, which tested students on subjects such as Latin, Greek, and Zoology, and was first distributed in 1926 as a way to compare students on a national level. Almost every aspect of the test, including what it claims to evaluate, has changed over the 90 years since its inception.
The first SAT was deemed the “Scholastic Aptitude Test”. This first variant was intended to evaluate no more than a student’s IQ, and was meant to be impossible to study for. The College Board, the creators of the SAT, eventually came under fire when it was proven that studying for the SAT was shown to reliably improve a student’s score, and in 1993 it was renamed the “Scholastic Assessment Test”. This name change raised problems of its own, and in 1997 the College Board declared that the SAT was no longer more than a trademark. To this day, the SAT does not stand for anything.
Despite no official agenda, the SAT and ACT are generally regarded as 3 hour- long assessments of college readiness, the latter detail having produced anti-testing sentiment. Organizations such as the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, otherwise known as FairTest, believe that standardized testing is an unfair way to evaluate students’ readiness for higher education and puts lower- income students at a disadvantage.
“Students, families and many educators (including myself) have become increasingly concerned about the cost of standardized testing,” says Michelle Borleske, the Director of College Counseling at TGS. “From the test preparation programs that can cost up to $3,000, to the $40+ per test date fee, [to] the cost of sending score reports to colleges.”
Despite the College Board’s efforts to combat the expensive price of test preparation programs by offering free test prep resources on websites such as Khan Academy, the public perception of standardized testing itself has still become a cynical one.
Colleges, especially those in the top tier, benefit from having students who scored highly on the SAT or ACT. High median test scores reflect well on a college and are a major factor in college rankings. “College rankings such as U.S. News & World Report consider the testing performance of incoming classes, and in many cases, the higher the score - the more elite the college,” says Ms. Borleske.
Organizations like Fairtest have been extremely outspoken regarding the cynicism that surrounds standardized testing’s effect on the college admissions process, and many colleges have changed their stances on the subject.
At least 900 colleges across the United States, including the prestigious University of Chicago, have become test- optional, a trend which has continued to increase in popularity in recent years. A test- optional college does not require an SAT or ACT score to be included in a student’s application for that student to be considered in the college admissions process.
These colleges generally pay more attention to a student’s application essay and extracurricular activities to gauge whether they will be a good fit in the school, though it is worth noting that UChicago’s mid-range SAT score averages an extremely high 1470-1570.
However, the argument for standardized testing still revolves around a lack of variables in student assessment. Chad Aledman, Op- Ed contributor in The New York Times, writes, “Annual testing has tremendous value. It lets schools follow students’ progress closely, and it allows for measurement of how much students learn and grow over time, not just where they are in a single moment.”
For better or worse, standardized testing is not disappearing anytime soon, and students should do their best to prepare.
Ms. Borleske says, “Yes, try your best on the SAT or ACT, but know that you're so much more than a test score. Do your very best ALWAYS in your daily classes, pursue your interests, learn new skills, work part-time, serve the community, meet new people - not for the sole purpose of impressing colleges, but for the purpose of being a fully developed, personally fulfilled, and interesting human being.”
Written by Liam Conroy
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