With winter almost ending, high school students can be ready to bask in the spring sun as their finals start winding down. Or can they? Spring is one of the most common times for students to take the SAT. Although college admissions do not start until Senior year, high school students can be seen stressing about the SATs and/or the ACTs from the beginning of high school when they take the PSATs. “I first took the PSAT in tenth grade” Amenah Hamid, a high school junior, says. “But the stress surrounding it started years earlier from seeing my older sister and my friends’ older sisters go through it.” The SAT and ACT have been the standardized tests used for college here in the United States for decades, providing important information that is used to assess students’ academic ability. But as of recent years the pandemic led to a temporary relaxing of the admissions’ rigid criteria, making these standard tests optional. As the pandemic ended the debate of whether or not standardized testing is truly accurate in assessing students’ academic ability grew, with some even arguing that the focus on academics takes focus away from students who are more in tune with their creative side.
As a student who took both the SAT and the ACT, I do recall the stressful period of time studying for them, especially as a first gen college student with no background. This opened my eyes to one of the biggest discrepancies of the test: test prep. While the questions do test one’s knowledge, there is no denying that there are always various test tricks that help you obtain a better grade, and such techniques are usually taught to students via college prep programs that cost thousands. This is a realization that Hamid has also realized on her journey studying for the SAT. According to Hamid: the fact that some students have access to such high tutoring while others do not makes one wonder “if the SAT or ACT are effective analyzation techniques or are they biased towards those of higher income.” While there should be some form of standardized college criteria that can help determine which students should be accepted on equal ground, such criteria should not be one that creates such discrepancies in people’s ability to prepare for them.
Add comment
Comments