Interesting opinion article on admissions policy

prepare4worst
Fri, 04 Mar 2005 17:08:52 +0000

Yes the SAT does not measure intelligence or true merit. Yes taking into account circumstances of an individual combined with several tests may seem less imperfect. But only to a completely impartial judge, of which there are none.

What the SAT does measure is how a diverse, differently abled population is able to handle the exact same reasoning problems. The standardization here is necessary for a concrete basis for comparison. School’s are all different, grades differ from class to class, teacher rec’s differ from teacher to teacher and some kids are homeschooled. Certain schools have the benefit of more lab equipment and better Chemistry teachers. Nothing is fair or absolute. Those who deserve the most do not always receive the most.

When looking at the SAT scores on an application the admissions officers are THEN able to take into account other factors such as race, socioeconomic status, opportunities etc. Thus the only “fair” way to measure merit is to design the least biased reasoning test and judge based on how people in similar circumstances perform.

If student X comes from a working class family in the city and attended an inner city school but has gotten good grades and shows leadership in the community their SAT score is not equally weighted when compared to student Y who is rich, attends a well known prep school and had the benefit of several SAT courses to improve his or her score. Collegeboard has no ulterior motive or impulse to create a test that is inherently unfair to some people, and at this point the SAT is the best they can do. But in terms of SOME kind of ability I disagree that the SAT is a bunch of meaningless puzzles that rich kids do better on simply because they are rich. The SAT does measure a form of ability. It measures reading comprehension, mathematical reasoning, and the mastery of the english language - and now the ability to coherently write an essay. None of these things are meaningless, and there is no way to create a test that measures ABSOLUTE merit, which is why there are a host of other things that are taken into account on any given application.