As of right now, hundreds of thousands of high school students are frantically preparing for the SATs. The SAT, according to the College Board website, is a “fair and valid predictor of college success for students of all backgrounds.” But is this really true? Is the SAT really fair? Before answering this question, one must understand the basic concept of the SATs. The three-hour long test is designed to quiz students on their basic reading, mathematics, and writing skills. The test does not measure what one might learn in school, but rather the ability of a student to take the SAT—“a skill that, depending on your ability to pay, you could pick up in a coaching class” (time.com). This is where the fairness of the test comes into question.
An SAT prep course, such as Princeton Review, costs from eight to nine hundred dollars for six weeks of test-prepping. Taking a course raises a student’s SAT score by an average of 150 points. Based on a student’s family income, he or she may not be able to pay such a large sum of money to prepare for the test. According to npr.com, “the strongest correlation between SAT scores and virtually anything is family income: The higher your family income, the higher your scores.” The same can be said for the SAT IIs, which are even more expensive to prepare for than the regular SATs.
Another inequality that can be found in the SATs is the prominent racial gap in the test scores. African American and Latino students tend to do worse than white students on the test. According to time.com, “even blacks whose parents have the same level of education and income as a comparable sample of whites score about 120 points lower on average.” The gap can be explained by the fact that most test writers are white and import cultural biases into the SATs.
More and more colleges, also questioning the fairness of the SATs, are beginning to make the test scores optional. Countless others are de-emphasizing the importance of the SATs in their admissions processes by weighing other factors more heavily. The president of the University of California proposed to “scrap the thing” claiming that the SATs “hurls kids into months of practicing word games and math riddles at the expense of studying chemistry or poetry.”
Cloud, John. "Should SATs Matter?" Time.com. N.p., n.d. Web.
Sanchez, Claudio. "College Board 'Concerned' About Low SAT Scores." Npr.com. N.p., n.d. Web.
Yup, I could not agree more. Although I teach an AP class, I am quite skeptical of the influence that the College Board has in our education system. The fact that most people object to is that students have to pay to take the test, before they even start paying to review for it. This is why in Milton, we offer the PSATs for free. Most school districts do NOT do this. Students in other districts pay for the PSATs as well. Are poor families, struggling to put food on their tables, really going to allot money for the PSAT or the SAT? As you write, they certainly are not going to allocate money for a review course. This, in turn, hinders their children's chances of getting into college...and the cycle continues.
ReplyDeleteThis is a good post, about an important topic. One big lesson: do not cite websites; cite authors. You did not learn your information from time.com and npr.org. You learned your information from John Cloud and Claudio Sanchez.