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College is a big part of many peoples lives. Many of us would love to go to the college of our dreams but unfortunately our SAT and ACT scores are preventing us from even getting accepted to begin with. Some people may be great standardized test takers, but others (like me) are not that great at it. I think people should have the option to take either test, but it should not be required to be able to get accepted to college. Although the ACT and the SAT are important factors for getting accepted into college, I do not think they are necessary for a high school student in the future to take to be able to get into college. At most colleges today, you are required to take the ACT or the SAT to be accepted. While some may think that is fair, others may not. The SAT and the ACT are “inaccurate, biased, highly susceptible to coaching, and not necessary for making high-quality admissions decisions” (Schaeffer, Bob. “Debating the Value of the SAT, ACT.” The Washington Post. 07 Dec. 2009. Web. 22 April 2014 ). I know many people who’s grades in school are much better than their standardized...
... a tedious process, but the change can have immense, positive effects for the future college student. The ACT and SAT that supposedly measure a student's learning potential through multiple-choice questions should be replaced by a test of a student's desire to learn determined through the analysis of essays, recommendation letters, and school or community involvement. This change can result in a more academically motivated freshman class. Standardized testing in its current form does not accurately measure most students' learning potential. It does not allow for diversity and creates a huge hurdle for many potential academic achievers. An adjustment to a diverse, open testing format of the ACT or SAT and a stress on the student's other academic accomplishments can accurately measure the student's desire to learn, therefore measuring the student's learning potential.
Many students feel stressed out when having to take standardized testing. According to Kaplan, colleges are relying too much on the SAT and ACT. They are using a long test that becomes equally weighted to years of school. That seems to be a little lopsided. A student can do well through out all high school and then score badly on the SAT or ACT and ruin all of the hard work that the student put forward in order to acquire good grades. That can alter the students lives by making them have to...
According to Robert Jackson in . “Retooling education: Testing and the Liberal Arts” Colleges who changed their admission by making the SAT optional have directed their aims into a more high school grade based admission. This solution is the only true measurement we have at the moment and it is a better measurement than the SAT states Robert Jackson. The writer also goes on to say scholastic aptitude should be abolished, as it has no true value or indicator of student’s ability. A more precise measurement based on four years of schoolwork is a pretty good indicator of student’s ability. It gives equal playing field for all students from their freshmen year in high school until their senior year in high school. Students have equal opportunities to perform giving them four years to accomplish good grades for college admissions. this method gives unprivileged students the opportunity to go to college who previously could not attend college because of SAT Prep cost. Also this method benefits college admissions by providing an indicator on how students will perform in college classes making it easy to admit or deny
"I think our students are just doing too much, ' ' said Stu Schmill the Dean of Admissions at MIT. "They feel like they have to do too much, and they really don 't. We want to send this message that they can pull back on that a little bit." Changing this standardized testing method relieves some of the pressure off of students who already have a high enough GPA for admissions, and makes it an additional criterion for students who have a lower GPA but could still succeed within the college level curriculum. The SAT/ACT scores would still be accepted for all students willing to take the tests, but just may not be weighed as heavily in the decision-making process. The purpose of this possible change would be to broaden the spectrum of students brought into each university and make the admissions process less about standardized test
Standardized testing is a type of test usually serve to determine how well you understand a concept which is often used for placement. These types of test include questions in a form of an essay, short answers, multiple choices, or a combination of these together and are given out as early as in kindergarten. This practice has been used for so long that it has become a part of the American culture. Every year, high school juniors and seniors worldwide take the SAT or the ACT in the hope that they score high enough to get into their dream school. However, there has been a lot of ongoing debates revolving around the idea of the use of standardized testing in college admission and the whether or not they are effective in determining a student’s
Standardized tests have been a scourge of student life in America for more than fifty years. Throughout the United States, high school students prepare for months for the day in which they have to take out their No. 2 pencils, to endure four everlasting hours of bubbling-in answers. The ACT, American College Testing, and its counterpart, the SAT, Scholastic Assessment Test, are known as the high school exit exams, in which they have become one of the largest determining factors in the college-admissions process. Both standardized tests judge a student 's performance, in which it measures how well students learned skills to meet state standards. Although standardized tests are meant to measure what one learns in high school in order to determine
It's nearing the end of the school year, and students and teachers alike are in a panic. Have the teachers taught enough? Have the students learned enough? All this worry and stress stems from one very specific issue: standardized testing. All of this commotion is just another indicator the standardized testing does more harm than good. Standardized testing is an inefficient and harmful practice that puts too much pressure on students, incorrectly categorizes test-takers, and results in ineffective teaching. (maybe rephrase, order-wise)
Why is standardized testing part of the college admission process? Some of us might still remember taking the SAT or ACT when we were applying for college; however few of us question why we have to take such a test. Millions of dollars are spent on prep materials all so we can achieve a decent score and hope colleges will be impressed. The College Board claims a high SAT or ACT score correlates to college success which is defined as a good GPA throughout college. However if you stop and ask yourself what the SAT or ACT has to do with college success, most of us will arrive at the conclusion that these tests have almost have nothing to do with college success. Some of the questions are simply on these tests are simply ridiculous and will never
It is difficult for certain population groups to do well on them and they reward “in the box” type thinking. However, they are not without their purposes in the admissions process. It can be complicated to compare grades in classes and GPA’s of students in different high schools because each course’s difficultly level varies. As the editorial board of the Washington Post argued, “No college can possibly know what an A-minus or a B-plus means in each of the thousand high schools their applicants attend” (“Getting Rid of SAT and ACT Testing Is a Mistake”). Basically, it is impossible to compare a student from California that gets an A in Geometry to a student from Virginia that gets a B in Geometry. Curriculum is different, teachers grade differently, and high schools have ways of inflating grades for their own benefit. This is where the importance of standardization comes in with standardized tests. Test like the SAT and the ACT, while not perfect, give admissions offices a baseline evaluator to compare students on. Without standardized test, students cannot be analyzed on equal footing. The danger in standardized tests is realized when schools assign too much value to a single score. It is vital that tests scores are used as what they are: a measure of student intelligence, but also just a number. Standardized tests are necessary in the college admissions process but cannot be the sole reason for acceptance or denial. Even the College Board, administer of the SAT, argues that test scores are best used when viewed in union with grades and extracurricular activities (Juric). If admissions offices are informed about the restrictions and imperfections associated with the SAT and ACT, especially the biases that appear against students from low income families, then test scores can be used
...for everybody, especially black people. Therefore, this can decrease an enrollment of black people in taking the SAT, and the SAT will seem biased. Third, the SAT scores can be incorrect (happened in October 2005), which means that the other tests, whose the scores are never incorrect, are better than the SAT. And the last, the SAT scores do not show people's futures. People can be successful even though they score low on their SATs. All in all, universities and colleges should not use the SAT to make a selection for their incoming students; they need another test which is fair for everybody. They also need to look at students' GPAs because GPA shows how well the students have done in high school. In other words, they also need to look at students' GPAs because students have done much more time and many more tests for their GPAs than they have done for their SATs.
Almost every high school student will take it: the standardized test. Tests like the SAT and ACT are used to measure how well a student will do in his or her college life, but these tests are not always accurate. There are many different types of students and most of the high scores and low scores correlate to certain groups of students which is why some argue these tests are biased. Standardized tests, especially the ones that measure college success, are not as effective at ranking a student’s academic ability as many people believe. Standardized tests prevent students from proper learning in the classroom and they cannot equally measure every kind of student’s intelligence.
Students should not have to take standardized tests because I think it takes too long, it cost too much money, and it takes too much learning time away from students.
This is one the biggest stress level that a high school student will go through in their junior and senior year. While taking the test students know that if they do not get a certain score on the SAT or ACT, they would not get into college or university they want. Having that state mind is not healthy for young teenagers. According to Where College Admissions Went Wrong, “Students today still spend months and sometimes even years of grueling work to secure a spot, spending thousands on test prep” (Wong Atlantic). Having high school students to spend money for tutors to do better on the test is ridiculous because some student still would not do well. Also with low income students are not able require that type of help to may get a small amount of help. Universities are trying to downgrade their choices or limiting their choices by requiring high school students to get certain score. In today’s society, most of students are not getting accepted because they have high G.P.A but a low standardize test score. Students required both to be high because it is competitive and puts a lot a pressure to on them. For example, Where College Admissions Went Wrong stated, “The intense competition, it fuels undermines students’ well-being; pressures applicants to fine-tune their test-taking skills and inflate their resumes; and distorts the purpose of higher education” (Wong Atlantic). Standardize test give away the higher education to student and defeating the purpose that education is to gain knowledge, not for being a competitive sport. There are colleges and universities that do not have SAT and ACT as required for admission. For example, Minerva schools at KGI, a university that is a live online teaching, does not require SAT and ACT scores to gain entry. As Graeme Wood Said, “SATs are not considered”(Woods 514). These students are doing fine. They are able to do to get a higher
It is easy to see how colleges find standardized tests necessary for acceptance into their institutions. The SAT and ACT do in fact serve as a “metric for learning” (Nixon 2). Standardized tests provide benchmarks of learning for educators and parents, since every student takes the same exact test. The problem arises however, when we consider that every student is not exactly the same. As quoted by Albert Einstein, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid.” College, unlike high school, is unique because not everyone is required to take the same exact classes to graduate. Thus, the claim of opposers rests solely upon the questionable assumption that everyone
Standardized testing is used in countries as a means to assess students, teachers and schools. Controversies of standardized testing include test purpose, design, implementation and use of test results. Standardized testing in the United States deeply affects the students and the school education system. They are unreliable and there is minimal increase of student performance of these tests. It is more than just a test. It has become a direct impact on how someone's future will look. Tests like the SAT or ACT should be a low-stake test to only be looked at to see a student's academic progress. Standardized testing should be revised because of the negative impacts on schools, schools are already opting out of accepting and taking certain tests, and the money aspect has affected everyone at the schools.