By Jake Mokris
Teen Takeover staff member
For decades, the SAT reasoning test has tormented high school students. For a high school senior applying to colleges, a bad SAT score could mean ... nothing.
Increasingly, colleges are beginning to question the usefulness of a standard college entrance exam, for reasons like these: some students, even those with straight A’s, might not “test well�; wealthier students can pay to be coached; scores aren’t as important as character. So some colleges, including Gettysburg and Franklin & Marshall, have gone “SAT optional�: instead of submitting SAT scores, students can send in graded schoolwork for review. This, such colleges believe, allows students to better reveal themselves and their personal qualities.
The majority of colleges still require SAT scores, and not everyone agrees that SAT scores should be optional. Last month, The New York Times published an article on this issue by Colin Diver, president of Reed College. Diver argued that colleges’ movement toward “SAT optional� has a lot to do with average SAT scores. Most students who decide to take the option will have low SAT scores, while students who score high would be happy to submit their scores. So for a lesser-known college with a low average SAT score, going “SAT optional� is a chance to raise its average and move up a few places in the U. S. News & World Report’s college rankings.
This is the “SAT optional� debate. As usual, both sides are partially right: Though SAT scores aren’t as important as character, and students with the money can pay for SAT tutoring classes, the SAT gives colleges a way to measure all students with the same ruler. Students come from all sorts of schools, take different courses, and have different grades. The SAT is a constant.
Since I’m home-schooled, colleges might be somewhat suspicious of my good grades. But my high SAT scores validate those grades. The SAT helps colleges interpret students’ grades. Students who truly learn from their education should do well on the SAT, no matter what their grades are.
The SAT does have problems. The math section lends itself to training: To do well on the math section, you need a previously developed mindset. I will basically have completed a math minor before graduating from high school, and even I think the SAT math is confusing. The meaning of the questions can be ambiguous. For example, how many rectangles fit into a circle? If your answer is greater than 10, then you’re wrong. I skipped that question.
But colleges know that the SAT is not the supreme authority on who gets into college. That’s why there are college applications, with a school report, essays and recommendations. For students with low SAT scores, the application is a chance to give the full story. The option to turn in graded coursework instead of SAT scores is the same as making the application longer.
If some colleges want to make submitting SAT scores optional, that’s fine. But even though it has problems, the SAT is too useful to discard.
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