April 25, 2024
By Gabriel Campos
Staff Writer
In recent months, a variety of postsecondary schools including Brown University, Dartmouth College, Georgetown University, Purdue University and the University of Texas at Austin have announced they will be requiring that applicants submit SAT scores along with their application for undergraduate admission. This is unfortunate, as colleges and universities should remove SAT scores entirely from their admission criteria.
Taking this test causes immense anxiety among students, and test scores have proven to be a better indicator of how wealthy a student is than their readiness for college.
The test should also be discredited because it is the result of racist beliefs. Carl Brigham, inventor of the SAT, was a eugenicist and professor of psychology at Princeton University when he first administered the SAT.
Eugenics is a pseudo-science that was invented by Francis Galton in 1883. It is founded on the false premise that the gene pool of the human species could be improved if certain groups were not allowed to reproduce and were segregated from the rest of society. These groups included those who were immigrants, non-white, neurodivergent, non-Christian, queer or in some way disabled. Eugenics resulted in the mass forced sterilization of Black and Brown women and was used to justify segregationist public policy for decades in the United States.
Every year, almost two million American high school students still take a test that was created almost a century ago to prove the superiority of the “Nordic race group.” The SAT would not matter nearly as much as it does now if it were not for this country’s deep-rooted history of racism.
Not only does the very existence of this test illustrate the United States’ history of racism, but current statistics about SAT results prove scores are impacted by economic disparities.
According to the Education Data Initiative, the prep course that has given students the best preparation for the SAT is led by the educational services company Princeton Review. Its classes start at $499, and the very best Princeton Review class, Princeton Review SAT 1500+, costs over $5,000.
This disparity in access to adequate test prep courses has led to a massive gap in test scores between the wealthy and not wealthy. Students with the lowest SAT scores tend to come from families earning less than $20,000 in annual incomes, while students with the highest scores come from families with annual household incomes of more than $200,000. These students with lower household incomes often go to poorly funded schools that do not do enough to prepare them for the SAT.
Little is done about this wealth disparity among students who take the SAT. For those who cannot afford Princeton Review’s courses, the SAT prep group offers self-paced instruction, which entails two weeks of free practice videos. The College Board, the organization that owns the SAT, provides help to students with financial aid through the CSS program, but it does not offer aid when it comes to prep courses for the SAT The CSS program functions as a non-federal scholarship fund for students who have already been accepted to college. While the aid provided by the CSS should not be understated, it would be great if the College Board created another financial aid program focused on helping those who cannot afford much SAT prep.
It makes no sense for colleges to require SATs when a significant number of SAT test-takers cannot even afford to prepare for the test, which can determine whether or not a student gets into the college of their choice. Fortunately, progress is being made to do away with the test. According to the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, at least 1,835 U.S. colleges and universities have enacted SAT-optional or test blind/score free policies. This is great news because the SATs are terrible for students’ mental health.
This disparity in access to adequate test prep courses has led to a massive gap in test scores between the wealthy and not wealthy.
According to a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, cortisol levels spiked by 15% among students prior to taking the SAT. Cortisol is the hormone your body produces when one is stressed. This resulted in an 80-point drop in SAT scores. Students who already have stressful living environments due to poverty, family instability or neighborhood violence saw a 35% spike in cortisol levels, which negatively impacted their SAT scores.
Finally, colleges should not require SATs because it is not a good indicator of success in college. This is an exam that only tests reading, writing and numeracy skills, but it is used as a predictor of first year college GPA and overall problem-solving skills. According to Forbes magazine, the best indicator of success in college is how well a student has performed in high school rather than on a standardized test.
The SATs are without merit. They have been proven ineffective at assessing knowledge, cause anxiety among test-takers and only benefit the wealthiest students. Therefore, colleges and universities should do away with the SAT as a required aspect of their undergraduate admission application. Instead, these postsecondary institutions should rely more heavily on grades throughout high school when determining which candidates to admit.
