Rian Rahimi
Dr. Wood
Leadership 1302
November 27, 2016
The Tests No One Wants to Take
Taking the SAT or ACT is just another troublesome step in the college application process. Upper-classmen high school students already have many other steps to worry about in the application process. These students are put under extreme amounts of pressure to do exceptionally well on these tests in order to get into a good university.“Why not Get Rid of the SAT and ACT?” an article by the Washington Post, is the kind of question that all upper-classmen, high school students are asking.The body of work a student has, such as: GPA, class rank, involvement, and service ship, speaks way louder than the SAT or ACT. These tests are hurtful for students, because it doesn’t show the full the body of work a student has worked for. The tests only measure three areas of knowledge, on reading, math, and writing. These tests don’t portray the real picture to a college or university of how intelligent the student is just based off this narrow-scope view. Let’s also not forget about how much these students and families are spending on preparing for these tests. As said by Blaire Briody in her articleSAT Tests: Another Drain on the Family Budget,“A 2009 report from Eduventures calculated that about 2 million students spend $2.5 billion a year on test preparation and tutoring” (p 3). As you can see, it can lead to some students to be at a disadvantage when it comes to getting proper preparation, supplies, and tutoring because of the costs. Even though some people say it is the only way to see
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if a student is smart or not, standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT should be done away withbecause the student’s overall body of academic work weighs more than
the score, it lowers the opportunity for students with lower-socioeconomic statuses trying to get into universities, and the scores are non-related to how well a student will do in college.
To start things off, the overall body of work that a student has accomplished in the classroom speaks volumes about a student. Factors such as GPA, class rank, and course rigorduring the time the student went to high school says loads of information on how intelligent a student is. This is the most straight forward way for any college admissions council could tell if the student has high enough grades or class rank to get into their university or college. These factors need to be more of the focal point in college admissions because there is no doubt that these factors portray the real deal about how intelligent a student. It is still amazing that through all of what a student has accomplished and achieved academically through he or she’s four years in high school is still not enough for any university or college to accept them in. Listen to what Dr. Joseph A. Soares from the University of Wake Forest has to say in his academic journal, “Though many parents and academics are surprised by this, it remains true that high school grades have always done a better job in predicting college grades than test scores.” (Soares 6). I believe grades still hold a huge weight in the academic world. If a student has to take a test just in order to prove again to a university that he or she is intelligent enough, then that is total unnecessary because the grades already speak for themselves.In an analogy form, that’s like saying, “oh you won the gold medal in the mile, but in order for us to believe that you’re the best, you have to run it again and achieve the gold medal again”. The SAT and ACT testsjust add another hurdle to an already very difficult college application process.
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For the admissions council they have tunnel vision when it comes to picking students. Admissions councils sometimes will pass up on a student that has pretty good grades in high school solely because when they see he or she’s test scores of the SAT or ACT aren’t high enough. It seems colleges in America today are getting to the point where they only care about the score a student makes on the SAT or ACT and not even look at any of the student’s high school academic credentials. According to Steven Syverson, who was former vice president for enrollment at Lawrence University (WI) states,“nothing is really ever talked about the average GPA or class rank of the college’s incoming class, the only thing that is asked about is, “What is the average score of the incoming freshman’s SATs?”, and just by hearing the number someone says, people automatically assign how good or bad that college is in comparison to others” (58pg). Schools are so focused on having their incoming classes have good scores.I believe that this is unfair for students who actually have done good in high school and have put in major work for the past four years trying to achieve a good GPA and class rank.It is disappointing that some colleges are only worried about the test score a student receives on the SAT or ACT, instead of looking at the entire student’s application.
Secondly, students who are in the lower socio-economic classes are at a disadvantage when it comes to doing well on the SAT or ACT. One of the reason why lower socio-economic students don’t do as well is because not all of the students have the same favorable learning environments that some students may have (Sternberg 7). It makes sense that the students that have good school districts around them would give them a better opportunity to do well on the tests because of the better teachers, course rigor, and facilities which has allowed them to
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become smarter. For students that don’t have adequate enough school districts around them it doesn’t give them the same opportunity to do well on the tests. Because they don’t havegood enough teachers, course rigor, and facilities around them that would propel them to become smarter. As said in Park and Beck’s journal article, “Findings signal that a rigorous high school curriculum sets the stage for other activities that are likely conducive to college prep.” (Park, Beck 13). In having solid high school systems in place for student can lead to students to achieve better scores because of the emphasis on doing well on the tests. This is putting a pre-unfair advantage on lower socio-economic students because they don’t have the same favorable environments to excel and become smarter as do high socio-economic students have.
Another reason why this group of students is put at a disadvantage is because of how expensive test preparation is.In Cooper Aspegren’s article he talks on how students from lower economic classes aren’t able to get the same preparation services as students in higher economic classes because of money. As said inAspegren’s article, “socioeconomically disadvantaged test-takers simply cannot afford the benefits of SAT preparation services in the form of private tutors or classes that cost thousands of dollars” (Aspegren 3). The lower socio-economic students don’t get the same amount of tutoring, preparation classes, and practice exams for the SAT and ACT that the students with the higher socio-economic statues get to have.This isn’t fair that some students get to have these services and others don’t just because of money issues.
The playing field for both of these different groups of students is unequal and is unfair to those who can’t afford all of the necessary preparation services to do well on the tests. If not all the students that are taking the tests given the same opportunity to have this test preparation
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service, then that leads some students not do as well on the tests. For example, when Cooper Aspegren states, “that the scores found by the Harvard University Educational Review and other academic media still found 200 to 300 point discrepancies in the performance of advantage and disadvantage students” (Aspegren 5). In having these services, it can boost a student’s score. This leads to higher income students to get a better test scores because they do have adequate funds to attend as many prep-courses as they want, while lower income students may not even have the opportunity to attend any. Scoring higher on the tests can put students in better shape to get accepted into a college just by attending these preparation services. I argue that these tests
put up an unfair advantage, which allows the high income students to have a lot more these services and achieve higher test scores, while lower income students don’t have this advantage to do better.These tests shouldn’t be about how many of these pre-courses that a student attends. Astudent’s parents shouldn’t have to spend thousands of dollars on preparation services, just for their child to get prepared for the test in order for them to do well. This is another reason why getting rid of these tests is a must because it puts lower socio-economic students at an unequal advantage for improving their test scores.
Another point is that some students don’t get a fair advantage to portray how smart they really are to colleges. The SAT and ACT only has three subjects it tests over, reading, mathematics,writing/grammar, including a science section in the ACT; however, it is really just
a reading comprehension section. As said by Sternberg in his journal article, “the SAT and ACT measure only [a] narrow segment of the skills…” (Sternberg 5). It is unfair for students who may be smarter in the other subjects such as, the sciences and social studies. This leaves colleges admissions with not a full picture of how smart the student really could be. Considerably just by
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testing these three areas doesn’t give a student the opportunity to show to schools how smart they are in other subjects. This puts some students at a disadvantage when it comes to applying for colleges because there are none of these subjects that they can be tested over, and reveal to colleges how well they can do in these areas of education.
In addition, the test scores are irrelevant to how well a student will do in college. According to Dr. Soares who is a sociology professor at the Universityof Wake Forest, says that, “The scientific prowess of the old method was never found to be very great, predicting at best, according to the test makers, about 21% of the variance in college grades” (6). What he is saying
is that only 21% of the scores made on these test have predicted a student’s academic success in college. Soares also says that since the rest of the other 80% is unknown this means that colleges don’t have right to say that this test is the gold standard in determining if a student should get into the college or not (7). To back up this even more, in Sparkman, Maulding, and Roberts journal article said almost the same thing, “[the] ACT/SAT…have been shown to account for only a modest amount of variance [of] 25% of a student’s academic performance in college…” (Soares3). I argue that if this is the case, college admissions can not assume that these scores are
predecessors to a student’s academic success in college because of how low the percentages are in variance of college academic success. College admission would then have to rely upon the
student’s academic work, course rigor, and extracurricular activities, instead of the score of the SAT or ACT because of how low the variance percentages are.
On the other hand, some people might think the test scores do validate college outcomes. As said in the academic journal, “An SAT Validity Primer”, by Emily Shaw, who is from the College Board that makes the actual tests. Talks about how the standardized tests have been a
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good way for validation of a student’s intelligence. Shaw goes into the SAT and ACT, doing research on previous tests, and looks at how past students have done. In her main claim, is how the tests are still a valid measurable challenge that is a reliable source for college admissions to determine if a student should be accepted or not. As when Shaw says, “validity evidence available on the current SAT,focusing on the evidence supporting the use of SAT scores in college admission decisions” (Shaw,1). Lastly, Shaw talks about how the scores have been able to predict grades in specific courses in college, as when said, “[The] SAT scores are also related to performance in specific college courses…those students with the highest SAT critical reading and writing scores (700–800 range) earned English course grades that were almost a whole letter grade higher than those of students with the lowest SAT scores (200–290)” (pg. 7). Shaw’s position is for having these tests still in play because she believes based off looking at previous scores and research that the tests still accurately depict a student’s intelligence. Therefore,in her mind it should be used by the admissions council to determine if a student gets accepted or not. Even in Marsh, Vandehey, and Diekhoff’s academic journal states that, “high school grades do not appear to provide much predictive power, and their grades in high school lead many entering students to overestimate their prospects for success in college” (Marsh 245 et al.) These authors even go to another level and say that the grades students make in high school still don’t even predict academic success in college. I believe both of the sources are wrong in their accusations. High school grades most certainly have a predictive factor in college success because grades tell the whole story of smart a student is. A student’s intelligence will carry over a because intelligence stays consistent and doesn’t just drop off when he or she comes to college.The
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grades also tell another story in the student’s work ethic and study habits, which are key assets to have when achieving good grades in college.
With all the factors that have been look at, the solution to this ordeal is to slowly start integrate making these tests a none requirement. These tests just add another unneeded step to an already very complex college application process.In America today, everything has to have some sort of regulation or string attached to it to prevent us from achieving things that we want to do. People value education and everyone needs to be given the opportunity to go to college.Why should there be a test that regulates whether kids get to attend colleges or not? There should absolutely be no regulations in allowing students who want to pursue higher education in order to have sustainable job. Thus, being able to attend college gives more of a likely hood forsomeone to have a long lasting job, which in the scheme of things can allow them to contribute to society and provide for their future families.
Works Cited
Aspegren, Cooper. "Standardized Tests Tend to Favor Upper-Class Students." College Admissions. Ed. DedriaBryfonski. Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press, 2015. Current Controversies. Rpt. from "SAT Is Unfair to Disadvantaged Students." The Oracle (10 Dec. 2012). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.
Gilroy, Marilyn. "Colleges Making SAT Optional as Admissions Requirement." Education Digest: Essential Readings Condensed for Quick Review 73.4 (2007): 35.Academic Search Complete [EBSCO Host].21. April. 2016
Marsh, Crystale M., Michael A. Vandehey, and George M. Diekhoff. "A Comparison of an Introductory Course to SAT/ACT Scores in Predicting Student Performance." The Journal of General Education 57.4 (2008): 244-55.EBSCO Host.Web. 15. April. 2016
Mathews, Jay. "Why not get rid of the SAT and ACT?" Washington Post 2 Feb. 2015. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.
Park J.J, and AH Becks. "Who Benefits from SAT Prep? An Examination of High School Context and Race/Ethnicity." REVIEW OF HIGHER EDUCATION 39.1 (2015): 1-23.EBSCO Host. 17. April. 2016
Shaw, Emily J. An SAT ® Validity Primer (n.d.): 1-18. Web. 27 Apr. 2016.
Soares, Joseph A. “Research and Assessment.” For Tests That ArePredictively Powerful and without Social Prejudice.32.8 (n.d.):1-22.ERIC. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
Sparkman, Larry A., Wanda S. Maulding, and Jalynn G. Roberts. "Non-Cognitive Predictors of Student Success in College." College Student Journal 46.3 (2012): 642. EBSCO Host. 22. April. 2016.
Sternberg, Robert J. "College Admissions: Beyond Conventional Testing." Change 44.5 (2012): 6-13. Academic Search Complete [EBSCO Host]. Web. 21 Feb. 2016.
Syverson, Steven. “The Role of Standardized Tests in College Admissions”: Test-Optional Admissions 107.38 (2007): 55-70. Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]. Web. 17 Apr. 2016