Small Colleges Are Dropping SAT

Across the country, dozens of small liberal-arts colleges are dropping the SAT requirement for admissions. This trend started a few years ago and is an extremely positive development. There are a variety of reasons that I oppose standardized tests in college admissions, but I think this quote sums up the issue quite nicely:

"We hope that now that there are more test-optional schools, students will think about not taking it, and putting their time and money into other activities, like music or writing or community service, said Jane B. Brown, vice president for enrollment at Mount Holyoke, which dropped the SAT requirement in 2001. We hope they will have more interesting lives."

The testing fetish is one of the most problematic developments in recent education policy. It forces students to spend time and resources memorizing information they will not use after the test. It is also unfair because it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on a student for absolutely no reason. A single test cannot serve as an accurate measure of a student's academic potential.

Studying for the test might even make students intellectually lazy:

"Some high school teachers criticize Princeton Review because its training favors stunts over skills. Today's Princeton Review class seems to exemplify this tendency. Depaoli demonstrates to an incredulous class that you needn't read all of a reading comprehension selection to answer most of the questions -- go to the questions first, she says, and they will often guide you right to the line or paragraph you need. And for "PC" authors and subjects -- and there is generally at least one of those -- the answer is unlikely to be anything that sounds negative."

Students are taught how to beat the SATs instead of building real academic skills. While this might help students get into college in the short-term, developing bad study skills will haunt students once they start taking college-level classes.

There are other reasons why standardized tests should not be used for college admissiowealthierhier students can afford expensive tutors and prep classes (which cost between $600-$1,000) while less affluent applicants are forced to study without support. In reality, the SAT isn'standardizedized measure of knowledge-- some students have access to prepatory materials and others do not. It's hardly fair to force students who can't afford study aids to compete with their more privilaged counterparts.

Colleges should select their students on the basis of long-term academic achivement and also factor in a student's potential. Some of the smartest and mcommittedtted college students are the ones who did poorly in high school and are now serious about their education. It's moronic to place some much emphasis on what is clearly a flawed way to measure scholastic apptitude.