SATs: Here to stay

A special report, "Should SATs matter?" in the March 12 issue of Time magazine addressed the importance of the Scholastic Aptitude Test in the college admission process.\nRichard Atkinson, president of the University of California, plans to replace the test as an admissions factor with a new exam that focuses more on subject matter. \nWhile his proposal is gaining momentum, the Educational Testing Service, which designs the SAT for the College Board, contends it is a "relatively good predictor" of a student's performance in college, according to the article.\nThe math and verbal portions of the SAT evaluate a student's quantitative thinking skills and his or her command of the English language (the two most fundamental skills in any subject area). And most colleges agree that they try not to put too much weight on the SAT. So what's the problem?\nAtkinson complains students spend valuable studying time trying to learn test-taking skills. But the College Board argues that the average student spends about 11 hours in preparation and that coaching adds less than 40 points on average. Atkinson proposes to invent a version of the test emphasizing subject matter. But the SAT II covers 22 subject areas and the ACT concentrates less on general reasoning than the SAT.\nMr. Atkinson, take a seat.\nMost big universities use the SAT to narrow down their application pool, while the elite schools are much more thorough in their evaluation of students. Let's think about this process without the SAT. \nThe University of California at Los Angeles receives more than 40,000 applications a year. Imagine the time and money it would take to sift through all of those applications. UCLA is a public university, so the armada it would have to hire would be paid with tax dollars.\nThe SAT, or any standardized test score, is a reasonable way to cut out a chunk of those applications. \nEven for schools that scrutinize their applicants intensely, the SAT doesn't mean much. A friend of mine scored a 1600 on his SAT, had a 4.0 GPA and took seven AP classes in high school. But he was denied admission to both Harvard and Yale and now attends the University of Virginia. \nBelieve it or not, most students favor the SAT.\nYou say, "C'mon Vince, I hated that test." I agree, but more than 2 million students took the exam last year and Mount Holyoke, a college that has made the SAT optional, states that only about 16 percent of applicants choose not to report their scores. It appears many students still have faith in the three-hour brainteaser.\nIn addition to reading the SAT debate, I discovered that President George W. Bush and I have the same SAT score (1206) and game show host Ben Stein scored a whopping 1573. Surprisingly, Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone's combined score was less than 800 and Jennifer Lopez reportedly got "nail polish" on her SATs, according to the Time article. Apparently, the SAT didn't tarnish their success.\nMany argue the SAT isn't fair, but what alternative would be better? The standardized tests I have taken since kindergarten have had the same format and type of questioning. But for some reason, the SAT warrants special consideration as "the test out to get you." Hours are spent learning how to "crack" the exam. Is that necessary? \nI remember a student in my high school who barely maintained a C- average. He somehow scored a 1250 on his SAT. How can anyone say that test was fair? \nLife is not fair. Neither is the SAT. But you gotta do what you gotta do.\nIU houses one of the most prestigious music schools in the world. When you play an audition for the music school, you have about 15 to 30 minutes to prove yourself to a faculty panel. Everything depends on that time frame: no SATs, no GPA. Some applicants will not play their best at that audition and won't get a second chance. Even athletes have a performance edge over musicians because they are scouted during more than one game. \nNone of these experiences are fair, but should we sacrifice the standards that have served us, and rightly so, for many years? Neither the argument for doing away with the test nor that of relying on it exclusively bear much weight. These aggressive standards are the driving force of competition, incentive and achievement. Given that, what's the best solution for this problem? I believe the SAT is the best we have right now.