The SAT - Necessary or Not?
April 26, 2023
By: Landon Cole
Since June 23, 1926, highschools and colleges have been using the SAT (or Scholastic Assessment Test) to gauge the intelligence of their students. However, recently the question of whether or not the SAT is as useful as it is made out to be has been more and more relevant; especially since many colleges have transitioned from a test required to a test optional environment when students are applying, which just means you don’t have to submit your SAT scores anymore. So is the SAT a necessary test or has it become an unnecessarily dreaded day in most Junior highschoolers lives?
Courtesy of Britannica Library
To answer this question it is important to first address the original purpose of the SAT and why it has been the most important highschool test for almost 100 years. As stated earlier the SAT was first created and taken in 1926 with the main purpose of helping colleges to compare the students from high schools across America. This was a time period where many more people including a high percentage of women were starting to attend school more frequently and colleges were struggling at choosing which students to accept. This led the company, Collegeboard, to create a standardized test that would be the same across the nation and help gauge which students were “more intelligent” than the others. Since then, the SAT has been the main test that colleges have looked at to decide whether or not to accept a student, and Collegeboard made a lot of money.
However, colleges have, in recent years, been going test optional for the SAT and ACT. The main reason that many colleges and universities give for this decision is that it is “unfair to judge a student based on an issue of finance” rather than actual intelligence. In Colorado the SAT is a free test (it is required because of this however), but in many states it costs over $50 to take the test. This led to a problem where students whose families struggled financially were unable to take the SAT, and due to this, oftentimes unable to attend any college resulting in (in most cases) a continuation of the poverty cycle. Many colleges also began to characterize students more on their GPAs and extra-curricular activities than on their test scores, so it only seemed right to transition from a financial test determining where students go, to a more accurate representation of their abilities within school and involvement outside of school.
Therefore, is the SAT a necessary test? The answer to this question is subjective and is different for each student and their plans for the future. However, as a whole the SAT is becoming less necessary and if students are able to prove that they are determined, relatively intelligent, and involved, then most public colleges will accept their application. However, regarding scholarships and other financial benefits at colleges the SAT can help students to afford to go to their dream school, even if the college is test optional. There are also still many schools that do require SAT and ACT scores, including many of the top 50 colleges in America. Thus, do not rule out SAT prep as in many cases it can still help students to get into the college that they want to go to.
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