As members of the Northwest Academy class of 2022 start putting together college applications, far fewer than usual are taking the SAT.
The SAT annual report showed that only 1.5 million students from the class of 2022 took the exam at least once–down from 2.2 million for the previous class. This trend is evident at Northwest Academy, where only five students from the class of 2022 took the SAT or ACT.
Students cited both moral opposition and lack of need as reasons for why they didn’t take a standardized test.
“It goes against all of my moral principles, and I did not take it,” said Mazie Drummond, a senior. “The SAT is a really classist and racist institution, and it doesn’t value individual thinking, it values conformity.”
Drummond’s claim is supported by research showing that whites, Asian-Americans, males and the wealthy consistently outperform their peers.
“There is substantial evidence that test prep can raise test scores, and even the College Board who administers the SAT test admits there are benefits associated with test prep,” said Kim Elsesser, writing for Forbes. Elsesser stated that test preparation and other educational opportunities are often too expensive for lower income families, putting them at a disadvantage.
But despite an undisputed correlation between socioeconomic status and high SAT scores, David Hambrick and Christopher Chabris, writing for Slate, said that it still allowed disadvantaged students to stand out from the crowd.
“Scoring well on the SAT may in fact be the only such opportunity for students who graduate from public high schools that are regarded by college admissions offices as academically weak,” said Hambrick and Chabris.
Oregon State University (OSU) went test-optional in 2020, but recommends that students with academic weaknesses submit standardized tests to bolster their odds.
“They can be helpful to applicants that may have deficiency in another area such as on the cusp of our preferred GPA,” said Melea Tejedas, Senior Assistant Director for Regional Recruitment at the University of Oregon. “Never in the past did they hurt an applicant’s overall application, and we are expecting to remain test optional.”
Julia Cain, Director of Student Services and College Counseling, said that she is opposed to the inequalities that she believes are a part of the SAT.
“If you have the time and the money, you can take classes and you can do better, and if you don’t, you don’t,” said Cain. “I have had 21 years of seeing really bright, hardworking students not do so well on the SAT.”
Chris Schuck, Northwest Academy Head of School, believes that the role of the SAT should be shifted from an aptitude test that predicts future success to a proficiency test that measures current knowledge.
“If we treat [the SAT] as a gospel truth prediction of whether you’re going to succeed in college, then I think we run into problems,” said Schuck. “And even if it really predicted success, we’d have to know more about what that really means.”
Henry Matusow, a senior who took the ACT, felt that the test fails to accurately measure intelligence.
“So much of the test is less about actual knowledge and more about test taking strategies,” said Matusow. “Understanding what kinds of questions they are asking and what kind of strategies work was much more helpful than any amount of blind practice.”
Many students were grateful that they no longer had to take the test in order to apply to their schools of choice. According to The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, nearly all liberal arts colleges are now test optional or test blind.
“I am fortunate enough to be able to apply to college in a time when it’s not required for almost every school, and I think that’s a really good step in the right direction,” said Adam Fortmann, a senior who did not take the SAT. “Every school that I looked at was test-optional and every school that I applied to was test-optional.”
Despite most colleges’ changing attitudes, many selective schools still want SAT scores, even test-optional ones. This led some students to take the SAT anyway.
“I did take the SAT because my top school desperately wanted it,” Jamie Mack, a senior who applied to the University of Michigan, said. “For me, ‘test-optional’ caused a lot of anxiety. I was worried colleges would dislike my application without an SAT score, even if they said they wouldn’t.”
Even though over two-thirds of colleges are no longer requiring SAT tests in light of Covid-19, and fewer students are taking them, Cain does not think that the SAT will disappear anytime soon.
“People are still hanging on to it, even when testing was shut down,” said Cain. “I know a family that drove to Idaho [to take it].
It remains to be seen whether most newly test-optional colleges will revert to testing requirements after the pandemic subsides, or if they will continue to de-emphasize the SAT and ACT.
Reporting by Jasper Selwood and Elliot Strom
Photo: “Cito Eindtoets Basisonderwijs” by Onderwijsgek is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5 NL
Well done!