Candidates who wanted to enter Harvard University in the fall of 1869 had a fairly tough entrance exam. There were questions in Latin and Greek grammar; history and geography (focusing on knowledge of ancient Greek and Roma history); mathematics (including finding a cube root without a computer; trigonometry; algebra; and plane geometry) (“Harvard Exam”). If you wanted to gain admission to the university, you needed to show that you knew a lot about these areas; it is fair to say that the difficulty is somewhat similar to what students in Advanced Placement courses are expected to be able to do. However, the focus, particularly in the liberal arts, is skewed significantly toward the classical era in ways that are not true today. However, the questions on this examination are all open-ended, allowing the students to show their knowledge, rather than having to guess options from a standardized question sheet. A more modern testing decision comes from Thomas Rochon, president of Ithaca College, who in 2013 made testing optional for undergraduate candidates for admission (Rochon). This appears to be a swing in the opposite direction from the very specific questions that one had to answer to join the ranks of the Crimson in 1869. The truth is, though, that sitting for a standardized test, such as the modern SAT and ACT, is not a useful way to measure potential success in college or in life, and so should not be requirements for undergraduate admission.
Originally, the idea behind these standardized tests was to make universities easier to enter. When James Bryant Conant, then the president of Harvard, urged for the use of the SAT in the 1940s, most of the elite colleges in the United States pulled their incoming freshmen from a small number of secondary institutions, most of which were in the northeastern part of the country. The wealthiest American parents sent their children to those schools, which meant that incoming classes in the Ivy League and other elite schools were exclusively white and rich. The purpose of the SAT was to “identify intellectual talent regardless of race, color, creed, money, or geography, and give that talent a chance to blossom” (Murray, web). The purpose of standardization was to apply a scale to the abilities for students, no matter where they were from, and no matter what grading system their high school used. However, it turns out that the SAT’s ability to predict the grade point average that freshmen would earn in college was infinitesimal. This means that admissions staff receive almost no useful input for forecasting an applicant’s future performance at university, which is why the test is given in the first place (Murray).
If you look at the meaning behind the initials in SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test), the “A” stands for aptitude – which refers to one’s ability. However, after the protests of the 1960s, it became clear that the whole concept of “aptitude” was a problematic one. Before that time, scores were interpreted without any consideration of the role of class and ethnic differences in producing students. However, one of the lessons of the civil rights era was that failing to account for those differences would lead to admissions policies that were still skewed against ethnic minorities and the poor; just because someone from a disadvantaged background had not yet gotten enough practice with analogies or had the wrong cultural background to understand the reading passages in the verbal section did not necessarily mean that that student would not do well at an elite university. The SAT continued to show a variety of differences along the lines of ethnicity and class, which to policy planners at the time showed that the test was inherently biased. Over time, the makers of the SAT have tried to justify the existence of the test, even as the test’s usefulness fell further and further into question. During the 1980s, the College Board tried to distinguish between intelligence and scholastic aptitude; the problem with this differentiation is that there is no operational validity for that semantic splitting (Rochon). In 1993, the College Board even took the word “aptitude” out of the name of the test and changed the name to mean “assessment.” Clearly, the test makers felt as though they were on the semantic ropes.
In 1994, major changes took place with the content of the SAT so that it would more closely follow national trends in high school curriculum. However, looking at the actual changes shows that these alterations were not as monumental as the test makers suggested. Twenty-five questions about antonyms on the verbal section were taken out and replaced with multiple choice items testing reading comprehension; the rationale for this change was that students could memorize vocabulary lists and get scores that were not consistent with their aptitudes. On the math section, some differences appeared in the answer format. However, considering a number of different scenarios is quite instructive with regard to the actual effectiveness of the test. Consider students with high levels of ability and motivation who go to the nation’s worst schools. In the majority of cases, these schools are clustered in the inner cities. The lack of quality instruction that students of all ability levels receive in those schools is likely to depress achievement test scores. Even if those students receive A’s in their classes, the lack of quality instruction in those classes in which the students receive A’s means that graduates from those high schools emerge less prepared for college coursework than their peers from better schools. However, the elite universities in the nation are eager to increase their proportionate enrollment of Hispanics and blacks from inner-city schools, and so admissions counselors from those schools are often quite eager to make allowances in the areas of standardized testing in order to compensate for that instruction. Another area to consider would be high ability students who attend mediocre schools, as in the typical small-town public high school or the usual urban school. The curriculum has standard courses for college preparation, and the textbooks are more helpful than those in the inner-city schools. However, the instruction is only adequate rather than extraordinary. The high ability students at these schools will either work hard in class, slide along through class to just pass, or suffer from alienation and show almost no effort. The hard workers will get A’s on their transcripts, and transcripts are the gold standard for college admissions officers. The letters of recommendation will bubble with enthusiasm about these students. The fact that hard workers also tend to read voraciously means that they have the cultural knowledge about history and literature necessary to do well at the university level. Those who slide along still have likely entered clubs and organizations that will look good in their applications – things like the debate team, theater department or the school newspaper. Even with lower grades, these students are likely to impress college admissions departments because of their high level of extracurricular activity. The high ability students who are alienated from life stay home and take no initiative. These students are unlikely to do well on the SAT because of the effort and stamina required; however, the SAT will not reflect their abilities, although they could do well enough to counteract the negative impressions that their grades and extracurricular involvement will suggest.
The growing strength of nationwide educational curricula means that the days when tests like the SAT and ACT are useful is past. Students of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds have access to a comprehensive education to a degree that was simply not true when the SAT was first introduced, shortly after World War II. Even though the SAT is used to measure potential performance in students who are about to go to college, there is no conclusive evidence that its findings are worth the expense and the effort that go into preparing for and sitting for the examination. Instead, grades, interviews, extracurricular activities and recommendations serve as a valid set of metrics for college admissions counselors to use when determining whether or not a student has earned admission to a university. The stress that the SAT and the ACT causes is simply not worth the payback that the test gives to its client universities – or to the students themselves.
Works Cited
“Harvard Exam.” http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf
Murray, Charles. “Abolish the SAT.” The American July/August 2007.
http://www.american.com/archive/2007/july-august-magazine-contents/abolish-the-sat
Rochon, Thomas. “The Case Against the Sat.” U.S. News and World Report 6 September 2013.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2013/09/06/why-the-sats-shouldnt-be-a-factor-in- college-admissions
