SAT Sparks Criticism

By Jason Vines

Recently, the Chancellor of the University of California school system made a startling proposal: colleges should stop using SAT scores as a barometer to evaluate prospective students. Instead, according to the Chancellor, colleges should rely only upon academic transcripts, teacher recommendations, and applicant essays. The Chancellor's reasoning was that because the SAT only judged a person's ability to take a test, the SAT is not a true gauge of a student's intellectual ability.

While the SAT is indeed an inadequate way to determine the full scope of a person's mental capabilities, the notion that colleges should ignore SAT scores is incorrect. The SAT might only ascertain a student's ability to take a test, but that in and of itself is a valuable function. College students must take a myriad of tests and exams during the course of their years in higher education. If a student cannot excel on tests, the student cannot excel in college. Were America's universities to drop the SAT requirement, colleges would lose an important device for predicting whether potential applicants will succeed at their schools. The Chancellor of the University of California will find that, if the university directors ratify his proposal, a fair number of students who are incapable of meeting expectations will gain entry into the University of California.

Of course, the Chancellor's objection to the SAT is not the only one. Many other individuals have assailed the SAT as a discriminatory test that favors urban whites at the expense of minorities. Considering that the average SAT score for Asians exceeds the average SAT score for whites, the above criticism holds no merit. Besides, the SAT only tests people on their skills in reading and math. A person taking the SAT does not need to know esoteric facts regarding obscure references about which only a white city dweller would have a great degree of knowledge. If a student can understand passages and compute numbers with proficiency, then he or she will perform superbly on the SAT.

The motivation behind these attacks on the SAT is simple: some underachievers are angry because an individual actually needs to have ability and talent to progress in life. A student must work hard for years to develop the skills necessary to truly excel on the SAT. The lazy underachievers don't want to put in the effort necessary to become more able students, but they still want to attend college, so the underachievers believe universities should eliminate the SAT requirement.

For the sake of educational integrity, colleges should definitely keep the SAT requirement. To drop the requirement would be a slap in the face to all those students who invest much toil and time to improve their minds. Many of these students are not wealthy suburbanites who merely have more opportunities to succeed than anyone else; these students simply recognize the importance of focus and diligence.

The cretins who believe teenagers should not need to take the SAT to gain admittance into college indeed should not take the SAT. The oafs instead should refrain from trying to attend college and work at menial jobs for the rest of their lives. That is a just punishment for not paying attention in school and not doing homework.