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Obviously, not every student will need a college-prep curriculum as not all will attend college. However, I think that taking it will benefit many students in the long run. Not everyone will enter college right after high school, but they may eventually decide to, and without that preparation, it will be much harder. And as Take3 said, many choose vocational tracks for the wrong reasons. In my school, students often shy away from harder classes because they mistakenly think that they won't be able to complete the work or because their friends aren't in the class. Some students are even pushed to attend these vocational schools, even if it's not what they want to do. One boy in one of my classes was pushed by a guidance counselor (who told him it was the best thing for him) to follow a vocational path even though he later admitted he didn't like it and wasn't even sure why he was there. Now he's taking advanced classes and wants to be a teacher. It worries me that that he was so close to losing this opportunity.
Not everyone is destined for college, yet I can't help but feel that this failure is a reflection of poor high school preperation. I am a good student and do well on standardized tests, however, I worry that even I won't do well in college. I take all the hardest classes my school offers, but many of them are ridiculously easy. There's so many homework assignments, make-up work, etc, that good grades are no longer a representation of a student's readiness for college. In one class, for example, I forgot to turn in one half of an assignment and received a 50, yet my average in that class still rounded up to a 100. As a result, lots of people don't ever bother to learn important lessons. Why bother? You can still get respectable grades without them. Students are falling behind and no one knows.
As for using a test to determine one's eligibility for college, it's just wrong on so many levels. The ability to gain a higher education is one of the greatest luxuries available to students today, and it would be wrong to take that opportunity away from people. Additionally, standardized tests like the SAT can be taught, so they're not at all representative of a student's ability at the college level.
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