SAT provides consistency in admissions process

By Devin Coldewey

The SAT I is under attack from many angles. Some opponents say
it is biased against lower socioeconomic groups. Some say it is a
bad predictor of potential. Some say standardized tests like the
SAT are unnecessary in the first place ““ they are all
wrong.

The SAT I is a viable, unbiased test of basic knowledge that
should remain in place as a factor in the UC admissions
process.

Standardized tests are hardly unnecessary. When an institution
is taking applicants from all over the country, it is imperative
that they have some constant they can look at. Schools and
curriculums vary widely, as do grading policies, conditions,
funding and a host of other features that determine how well a
particular student may have done. There needs to be some kind of
unifying element, and none is more ready and willing than the
SAT.

The SAT is well-established and widely recognized, and is
available to anyone who wants to take it. It is also proven to
correlate with potential and intelligence, however one chooses to
define them.

Disagree? Take this simple test … Given a low score of 900,
consider the question: who is more likely to get this score, a
smart person or a dumb person (excuse my terminology, but
politically correct terms are just far too bulky to use)? Then take
a score of 1500 and ask the same question. If you think a dumb
person is just as likely to score high on the SAT as a smart
person, then you’ve got another thing coming.

Of course these scores are not a perfect predictor of potential,
but what is? It follows that, as with any test, the higher the
score, the better the taker’s proficiency.

The last objection would be the socioeconomic gap. I hesitate to
call this problem a fabrication; it’s more like
misinformation. Opponents say the SAT is biased against minorities
and people of lower socioeconomic status. This is an untrue
statement based on derivatives of statistics on SAT achievement by
schools and districts. The actual correlation is not between score
and race or wealth, it is between score and schools with different
percentages of minorities; specifically, that the average score
goes down as the minority component goes up.

However, if you look closer you might observe the funding,
conditions and locations of the schools in question. Take, for
example, a nearly century-old building marked for demolition in the
middle of a poor area of town, where the principal changes every
year and the only thing smaller than the staff is the budget. Then
observe another school, nestled in a rich suburb where the kids
drive Ford Expeditions and the school receives thousands or
millions of dollars in contributions from parents and affiliated
companies. First think about which school will yield a higher
average score on a standardized test, then think about which one
will have a higher percentage of minority students. The school is
the primary factor in both SAT score and minority count.

The last part may have seemed like an exaggerated situation used
to prove a point, but it is in fact the same information from which
the opponents of the SAT took their arguments. The difference is
they didn’t show you the big picture.

They told you that minorities score lower on the SAT, but they
didn’t tell you that these minorities make up the majority in
the overcrowded, under-funded schools the researchers took their
score data from. They told you that smart people can score low on
the SAT, but they didn’t tell you that dumb people rarely
score high. They say we don’t need a standardized system of
testing anymore, but they don’t mention that there’s no
other way to objectively compare millions of people. If you see
past the opponents’ snake oil, you will find that the SAT is
still a viable and valuable tool for any university’s
admissions process.