As the debate over the College Board’s imminent changes to the SAT continues, I cannot help but feel that many people ignore an important fact: the SAT, or any standardized test, better predicts factors like family income and parents’ education levels than it does academic success in college. Neither the current SAT nor the proposed new exam pass muster as predictors of students’ potential to be academically successful and intellectually engaged in college.
Clearly, there is no easy answer— the debate persists even after academics and institutions have proposed myriad changes. One suggestion from Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, is to completely eradicate multiple choice exams. In an interview with Time Magazine, Botstein called multiple-choice exams like the SAT “woefully invalid” predictors of academic aptitude and future workplace challenges; instead, Botstein proposed a “rigorous but enlightening process” that combines pedagogy and high-tech software to reveal students’ capabilities.
In 1999, Harvard University professor Howard Gardner — famed for his theory of multiple intelligences — argued for exams that tested “disciplinary” modes of thinking such as history, science, math and art over the SAT. Such exams, he argued, would be better metrics of students’ comfort with “the intellectual core.” He advocated for AP exams over SAT scores as measures of this quality. Fifteen years later, this might mean emphasizing SAT subject tests, AP exams and IB results over the SAT in the admissions process.
State end-of-course tests, alternatively referred to as state tests, are another alternative. In 2001, this idea was narrowly defeated in North Carolina, where the state legislature failed to pass a bill that would have directed the University of North Carolina Board of Governors to incorporate the state’s end-of-course testing into admissions and placement decisions in UNC schools. Using state tests in admissions for state colleges could be a good choice for schools that admit a high proportion of students from in state; in these cases, using state exams would give admissions officers a better sense of an individual student’s scholastic competency against the state curriculum.
Another potential route is the one that Oxford University has traditionally used. While Oxford looks at students’ A-levels, it also has its own tests for various courses that students must take as part of their application process. For elite colleges that have the means and desire to truly customize their selection process for new students, this route has the advantage of forcing potential applicants to truly invest in a particular course of study and demonstrate their suitability for that course.
Finally, a number of colleges have abolished the SAT as an admissions metric altogether. Over 150 test-optional and test-flexible schools are currently listed on the website of Fair Test, an organization that aims to improve standardized testing. These schools have various reasons for transitioning to test-optional or test-flexible status. Many are arts schools that weigh portfolios and non-academic accomplishment more highly than traditional scholarship, and others embrace the belief that exams are inherently flawed and therefore unreliable as predictors of students’ potential for achievement in college.
Of course, none of these solutions are perfect. There are numerous issues with abolishing the SAT altogether, even if it is a flawed instrument. College admissions aside, Kathryn Juric, vice president of the College Board’s SAT program, argues that the SAT “gives students the opportunity to demonstrate their college-preparedness despite inconsistent grading systems through the nation’s high schools” and “provide[s] a national, standardized benchmark that neutralizes the risk of grade inflation.” To some extent, this is true. At the very least, the SAT provides admissions officers with a sense of students’ abilities to study for a set of question types.
However, the SAT is unsatisfactory for those who believe that the mere ability to study for a test is not the best standard for college admissions.
There are no easy fixes to the SAT in its current or proposed future form. In order for the SAT to stay relevant to colleges that value students’ capabilities as thinkers, the College Board must craft an exam that tests intellectual capability in and of itself, rather than one’s ability to work through a limited set of questions.
