A few weeks ago, The Daily Campus reported that this year’s entering class at SMU had an average SAT score of 1302, a record high that has put us in the prestigious “1300 club” of colleges. Oh boy, someone bust out the champagne.
If I sound a tad jaded about this milestone, there’s a good reason: I vehemently disagree with colleges’ use of the SAT for admissions.
The more I’ve researched this position, the more I’ve learned that it’s not as outrageous as I originally imagined: according to a September New York Times article, “The National Association for College Admission Counseling has called on colleges to consider eliminating the SAT and the ACT from their admissions requirements…saying the exams underrepresent the abilities of some students, in particular minorities, while favoring those who can afford coaching.”
Now, from a practical standpoint, average SAT scores aren’t a useful measurement of class aptitude simply because the numbers are so easily manipulated. When the only measure that matters is the average SAT score, Admissions does not necessarily have to convert the scores of students who took the ACT. I suppose if Admissions was feeling particularly dastardly, it could have low-performing students only declare ACT scores, thereby increasing the average SAT score with minimal effort. I’m not going to make an unsubstantiated accusation that SMU does this, but abuses like this certainly happens at high-ranking schools and the numbers aren’t very useful if they can so easily be cooked.
However, what really irks me about the SAT is that, on an individual basis, it still fails to tell us anything useful about a student’s ability to succeed in college.
For the past year and a half, I’ve been employed as a high school SAT tutor, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from my experience, it’s that the SAT is more of a game than an actual exam. The more exams you take, the more you understand the rules, and the better you can fix the system in your favor.
The problem is that high school students don’t play this game on an equal footing. The key to succeeding is individualized attention and continued practice, but most high schools don’t teach SAT practice as a course.
Students who want to succeed on the test generally shell out hundreds of dollars on practice books and tutoring sessions; additionally, if these students do poorly on the exam, they can pay to take it two or three more times until they get the score they want.
That’s all fine and dandy if you have sufficient funds, but if the SAT registration fee already almost broke the bank for you, the last thing you’ll be thinking about paying for is a prep course. The most accurate statistical predictor of one’s SAT score is one’s ZIP code; that alone ought to make it clear that the rules of the game are rigged.
Some schools have abandoned the SAT entirely in favor of more useful entrance requirements.
For instance, this year Bard College has allowed applicants to write a series of research papers that will be graded by school professors. If the student gets the equivalent of a B or better, they get in.
Though such a system might be too ambitious to function at a medium-sized school like ours, I applaud Bard for requiring students to do college-level work to be admitted into college.
We award degrees to students, not SAT scores; this ought to be at the forefront of our mind when it comes to student admissions.
Bub is a senior majoring in English, political science and history.
