Discussion

By Dov Isaacs on Mar 22, 2024

The problem with the SATs is not whether you are taking the exam electronically or using paper and #2 pencil, but rather its relevance and fairness.

Many critics of the SATs (and the similar ACT exams) rightfully claim is that all these exams are really testing is your ability to quickly answer questions with their preconceived notion of what is the “correct” multiple choice response (especially on the “verbal” section of these exams), absolutely NOT whether you have the “aptitude” for college. Quite often, if you “overthink” a question, you find that more than one of the choices could be “correct” and you end up wasting time on a timed-exam trying to second guess the exam's creator. Add into these considerations the cultural and language biases that these exams introduce!

Back in the last century, the College Board and Educational Testing Service admonished those applying to take the exam that no amount of studying or preparing for these exams whatsoever would assist in raising one's score – the exam and their scores were the absolute truth about the worthiness of a student for college. Of course (no pun intended), various SAT coaching courses sprung up over time and proved that to be totally malarkey; with (often quite expensive) professional coaching it was often not very difficult to raise one's score by as much as 100 points (on a 200 to 800 point scale) making a tremendous difference in one's ability to get into very selective universities. Ironically, the College Board NOW explicitly endorses such exam preparation – so how are these “aptitude” exams?

The real reason why these exams persist is that high school course grades don't mean all that much and are not particularly consistent from school to school or even from one teacher to another within a school. A few states have standardized, course-specific high school ACHIEVEMENT tests (such as the New York State Regents Exams) that provide more information about a student than the SATs. And very few universities can afford to rigorously verbally interview candidates and/or spend much time evaluating each candidate's application.