yes
- Top colleges receive 20,000 applications for 4,000 spots. All the students are "A" students with good letters of rec., extracurricular activities and well written essays. The schools can only spend 30 minutes per application, so how should the college decide who to accept?
- —typeters
SAT
- Since all high school kids today are "A" students the SAT/ACT help schools decide between a kid from Virginia, one from Maine and one from Florida. There is no other way to compare kids from different schools in different states.
- —typeters
Practice, practice, and more practice!
- I'm currently a junior in high school and in the extremely grueling process of preparing for the ACT/SAT. I'm actually taking a break from my daily 2 hour ACT/SAT study session to type this. People can debate constantly about whether or not standardised testing should be required or not, but it all boils down to practice and hard work. Thousands of study materials are available to those students who do terribly on these tests and there is no reason why they shouldn't be putting them to good use. Practice makes perfect. Although I believe the tests are overrated, they provide colleges with a way of sorting through the thousands of college applications they receive. Not to mention there are PLENTY of colleges that do NOT require ACT/SAT scores. The tests aren't going anywhere, let's face it. Not to mention those who are against standardized testing are the ones who tend to score poorly... Hmm... Anyone noticing a trend here?
- —Guest The Truth
A four hour test
- DOES NOT MEASURE YOUR FOUR YEARS IN HIGH SCHOOL. You want to know why some of these people are saying, "Oh yeah keep the SAT, it measures intelligence." It's probably because those people did well. If I did well, I still wouldn't say keep the SAT. I HATE HOW COLLEGES TAKE SATS INTO GREAT CONSIDERATION. How will a four hour test on a Saturday morning tell someone how I will do my first year in college? IT WON'T. I know students who slacked all four years, received C's and D's in AP and honors courses and got a 2000 on the SAT. That's ridiculous. I don't do well on the sat but I receive A's and B's in all of my honors and APs and got a SAT of 1770. Now is that really fair to me if the person who blew off school was accepted into college over me, because of their better test score?
- —Guest saltnpeppa
yes
- I haven't taken the ACT or SAT yet, but from what i hear, they are very biased and don't really measure your actual knowledge of the subject. With my status I would probably fail it and never get into the college I want. They should definitely be optional!
- —Guest newbie
yes
- Honestly the ACT is overrated. It's not really that hard and if you did well in school you will be fine. I didn't study for it that much and managed a 32. Stop whining guys. Life is tough
- —Guest youma
mom of two boys
- shouldn't be required at all. I had one son that did not have prep tests and scored 1910 first time out. I had another son that took Princeton Review prep course and scored 1910 also - it wasn't a knowledge test course it was a 'how to take the test' course. My first son loves multiple choice tests because in his words, "you don't have to know anything" - just how to take the test". In both cases, knowledge was not being measured. Throw ALL multiple choice tests out! Also, get rid of teacher tenure and the unions! I'm tired of bad teaching and mediocre, unprofessional teachers!
- —Guest mom
Yes, definitely should be optional
- SAT/ACT scores don't really represent one's academic ability. All they measure is how well you can take a test. Even then, it's very hard to improve such test scores, even with test preparation. For example, I could only get my reading score up to a 570 or so even with an SAT class and a lot of preparation. Yet I got an 800 on Math II and 740 on Physics with absolutely no practice (math, physics are my strongest subjects anyway). You pretty much have to be already proficient at the subject matter to get a good score.
- —rcspence
What SATs Measure
- If you take a look at the statistics of who does well, it is difficult to come away thinking that these tests only measure academic achievement. There is an extremely high correlation between family background (parent education, family income, ethnicity) and scores. Rather than helping to equalize the playing field, the SATs just skew it further toward those from privileged backgrounds.
- —Guest Prof
Cheating
- They should be required, because there are people who cheat and get good grades.
- —Guest Harold
You got it all wrong.
- You're all fools. The SAT/ACT doesn't measure how well you test, or how smart you are. It measures HOW MUCH YOU'VE PREPARED FOR IT. If you get a low score, then you didn't prepare enough. Simple as that. Even if you prepared for the SAT/ACT all summer, and still got a lower score, you didn't prepare enough. All it takes to do well on these exams is practice. You drill on practice tests over and over again until taking them becomes second nature. Doing well on the SAT/ACT shows how hard a student studies for the test. If a student scored high, the student studied for the exam hard, and that is what colleges want to see.
- —Guest HS Student
GPA
- SAT and ACT should be required. G.P.A.s vary widely from school to school. Also students with learning disabilities, for some their G.P.A. are low but they have very high IQ scores and test very well. If school don't require SAT or ACT then these students will not be able to go to good colleges because they have learning disabilities.
- —Guest Someone
The world is theirs
- The people at the top that make the national stadardized tests sit and think about what a student should know from thier point of view. They do not realize the struggle that students face everday. Instead of testing students on history, test them on thier work ethic that will set the stage for the history that they are trying to make. Instead of science, test them on the struggle that most of the unfortunate students have to face when thier families depend on them to eat. Instead of testing their " academic intelligence", test their determination to succeed. Oh wait, that's right -- there is no such test.
- —Guest A future educator
The tests should be required
- The tests should be required. There are very limited space in top colleges. To decide based only on gpa is obviously ludicrous. Not all schools are the same. ACT scores can be used to accurately predict IQ in the general population. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289607000487
- —Guest Bob
GPA>ACT/SAT
- Many people on this board who are advocating for standardized testing also have poor grammar and have made spelling errors. There are many hard working students who give their all to succeed. I would rather have a class filled with these students than one filled with students with poor GPAs accompanied by high standardized test score. There is no better employee than a hard working one! This is better reflected by GPA than ACT/SAT score!! : P
- —Guest smarterthanu
