What Should Represent a Student?

Telling a student that one test is more important than his/her entire high school career is obscene to me. The ACT and SAT are two standardized test that almost every high schooler takes. These test usually help you get into certain colleges, and open scholarship opportunities. Sounds like a win-win situation right?  Wrong, this is a poor representation of what a student is capable of and GPA should be the main focus for college acceptance.

GPA should be the main reason why a student is selected to attend a college. Luckily many colleges are recognizing this and have stop requiring students to take the SAT or ACT.  “Washington, D.C.'s George Washington University last month joined more than 850 U.S. colleges and universities that no longer require applicants to take the SAT or ACT…” (Article). This is a great start but we need more colleges to adapt to this style. These colleges have seen a steady increase in applications after throwing out the test requirement. This is helping both the students and the universities. It’s giving students more opportunities to apply to different colleges, and it is helping the schools since it gives them a larger selection of students. Now this seems more like a win-win situation.

GPA is representing how well a student has done over a four year course. This shows colleges how a students does in certain subjects, their ability to learn in challenging classes, and if the students implements good work and study habits. These are  major indications to tell if someone is ready for college. Not a test that is a couple hours long and has you answer about 75 questions for every subject. Which one sounds more logical? Defining someone over a course of four years, or seeing what someone can do in a couple hours.

There are many factors why someone would not test as well as they should on the ACT or SAT. Many students with a 4.0 GPA or higher test into the 50-70 percentile. “Natalie Casimir, an 18-year-old from Troutman, North Carolina, is among the college students who were helped by the new trend away from test scores. Even with a high school grade point average of 4.0, she said, her SAT score of 1580 out of 2400 had driven her to despair about getting into college. That score would have put her in the 60th percentile of students taking the SAT in 2013, the College Board said.” (Article) Now you are probably thinking why these students that are usually in the top ten percent of their class are scoring so low. Well there are a multitude of reasons but one of the main ones is the test having to condense one subject to 50-75 questions each. This means having the entirety of one year of math down to 12-18 multiple choice questions.  Now this makes the test a guessing game for the student. This causes students to study for certain subjects that maybe not be on the exam. Making the test feel like the casino, if you are lucky you will come out successful, if a wave of bad luck comes over you, then you may have to come back another day.

In the end of the day these test should not be the staple of recognizing fit candidates for college. Instead look at their achievements, and behaviors in school,  then you may take a glimpse at their standardized testing scores.

Cites

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/us/george-washington-university-drops-sat-and-act-scores-for-applicants.html?ref=topics
2. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/08/16/us/16reuters-usa-education-tests.html