By Norah Jewett ’25
SATs. The infamous standardized test that looms over high school students during their college application process. It’s been a staple for the American secondary education system for about a century at this point. With questions in reading and writing comprehension as well as a math section, the approximately three hour exam has just been one of those commonly accepted parts to the ever-important college application. Yet the test’s subjective importance in college applications has shifted in the past few years as schools juggle the decision to require it or not in their applications.
In the past few years, the SAT has not been a necessity for the college application for most schools, mainly due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus Pandemic during the time of the 2020 college application process. With the entire world freaking out over this pandemic, systems of life that previously were normal changed in the face of this threat, and the college application system was no different. Colleges spoke to how they wanted to focus more on leadership instead of testing scores.
Additionally, taking the SAT in the first place proved to be a challenge while the world was on standby. Because of the limited access, it wasn’t possible for millions of kids to take this exam across the country, especially when you consider how it’s much more likely for a kid to cheat on an online exam at home. Moreover, test scores tend to be worse after disasters, according to several analytical studies. Even if this test was encouraged during this time, scores would reflect the uncertainty and stress college applicants were facing. The most efficient way for schools to make their application process easy for the upcoming class was to not require it, a trend we see visible as the Common App reported how 43% of kids submitted test scores in the 2020 application pool.
COVID was not the only factor that swayed many schools away from the idea of the SATs. Multiple studies have illustrated that the SATs indirectly discriminate against minority students and students in poverty. Those students are less likely to score as well on the SAT in part because the test is catered more towards the life experiences of white, middle class students in terms of content. Getting rid of requirements of the exam would also rid minority students of a piece of the puzzle that commonly worked against them.
Since many schools no longer require this exam, many students are choosing not to submit their test scores unless they’re around 1400 or above. Because of this, the SAT scores for schools are absurdly skewed because schools now only have the average data from high test scores to analyze. Even students who obtain 1300s on the test and are in the 86th percentile for SAT takers that year aren’t submitting their scores because they appear to be “too low” for some schools they may be applying for. Hence, the data shown by schools isn’t entirely accurate because a large portion of applicants aren’t submitting their scores.
While most schools since 2020 have not required the SAT, many of the more prestigious schools, such as the Ivy Leagues, are starting to require them once more as part of their applications. Schools are finding it hard to distinguish applicants from each other and decide between them when choosing who to accept. In a normal scenario when using the SAT system, if two students’ applications looked very similar, they might have used the SAT system to decide who to accept. Taking away the SAT also takes away a potential deciding factor.
More and more kids are starting to take the SATs again, and more and more schools are starting to require them for their upcoming application seasons. But as this slow shift happens, it’s becoming apparent that scores have been dropping the past few years, as they tend to do after large-scale disasters that affect numerous people.
These aren’t the only changes with the SAT. During this past March, the first digital SAT had been taken, marking the switch from a paper exam to an online exam. Moreover, the online exam is adaptive, so if one does well on the first section, the second section will be more difficult. While this adaptiveness has been taken into account in the scoring of the exam, it has raised more questions over how helpful and necessary it actually is.
The SAT is simply what we regard it as: a singular test. While it can be taken several times, it’s one data point in an entire application. There’s more to a person than just a single test score. While the exam is effective in pinpointing where a student lays in a sea of applicants, it never has and never will be the sole factor in determining one’s acceptance into a school. Its use has come and gone in waves, and while we’re starting to see a gradual shift back to this test, many are debating its legitimacy in condemning students to acceptance or rejection.
