Every spring, hundreds of thousands of high school seniors anxiously await the arrival of their college acceptance letters. However, if one did not receive a favorable piece of paper in the mail, he or she might be more apt to refer to it as the “soul-crushing, spirit-breaking, kick-the-cat-into-the-farthest-reaches-of-the-cosmos-because-I-am-so-angry, my-life-is-over-and-now-I’ll-have-to-work-in-a-McDonalds-o-gram.” Ah, the sweet smell of teen angst.As the seniors destroy public property in joy/despair over their admissions decisions, many high school juniors are hard at work preparing for the SAT. Just the mere mention of those three letters is enough to arouse a collective look of lemon-sucking disgust about a test that should be eliminated.
Based on which college one chooses, the SAT can either be a nonissue or a huge part of the admissions score. For example, Allegheny College, in Meadville, Pa., ranks SAT scores third on the list of most important admissions factors. It’s situated right behind the rigor of high school classes and class rank. Interesting enough, the oft-touted extracurricular activities are in fifth, while the admissions essay and teacher recommendation rank seventh.
SATs were supposed to be the icing on the cake, not a huge chunk of the admissions filet. I guess Allegheny College would rather have a campus full of no-personality standardized test masters than people who are actively involved or who are well-loved by their peers and superiors. The SAT is just a numeric value, not a gauge of someone’s value to an institution. People who are involved and well-liked will go much further in life than someone who can bubble in the right answer on a Scantron.
People think that if they don’t get into Smartypants Tech, their lives will be tattered to shreds and they’ll be panhandling in Chicago, dying unloved in a cardboard box behind a Denny’s. So, they sign up for expensive test prep classes. A Kaplan review course costs $1,899 for a couple hundred points higher on the test and a little encouragement from a counselor. Just buy a prep book for $30.
While the SAT is neither an accurate barometer of someone’s worth to a university nor deserving of all of the monetary hoopla associated with it, it is not even an accurate judgment of someone’s mental acuity. Sure, the point of a college is to nurture clever young minds so they can go on to do something great. However, when trying to estimate someone’s potential for academic success, the four-year high school-track record is the only way to go.
The SAT is based on three hours of one’s life. Maybe he had some bad tacos the night before. Maybe those pesky neighbor kids kept him up all night with their hippie pot party. Maybe brain slugs from Jupiter infested his cerebellum and forced him to do their bidding, which didn’t include math problems and reading comprehension. Whatever it is, one’s performance on the SAT may not accurately reflect intelligence.
Whether a good student who did below average on the test, or a poor student that pulled off a good score, the SAT can really present a false image of the applicant it is supposed to represent.
The SAT is undeserving of its high status in admissions circles. In the end, it is no more than a representation of a student’s talents at one point in time. Basing any sorts of assumptions about a student off of it is ludicrous. The SAT’s position in college admissions boards should be lowered significantly, if not altogether eliminated.
David Hall is a freshman news-editorial journalism major from Kingwood. His column appears Wednesdays.
