Allie
Cuccoli
ENGL
102-039
Rogerian
Argument Essay
20
March 2013
Standardized Test: The
Useless Tool
Junior and senior year are
the most stressful years of high school students’ careers. Not only are students juggling college tours,
sport activities, extra curricular all while maintain a collegiate-acceptable
grade point average, students must also cope with the stress of taking numerous
standardized tests, specifically the SAT and the ACT. The majority of American
students have to take both the SAT and the ACT in in order to complete their
college applications; with out those scores, many colleges will not accept
applications. Admission councilors place a heavy emphasis on SATs and ACTs
because they believe the tests will accurately predict how well a student will
succeed in their college careers. Recently,
the debates regarding whether or not admission councilors should heavily depend
on the tests to predict a student’s success at college have become more
prevalent in today’s academic society. Increasing evidence that standardized
testing inaccurately portrays a student’s academic ability is contradicting the
traditionally held belief that standardized tests give valid insight into
students future achievement. Therefore,
college admission offices should embrace the test-optional practice; students
should be given the choice to submit or exclude their standardized test scores
when completing their college applications.
If an applicant does decide to include his test scores in his
application, admission councilors should only use the scores to further enhance
the applicant’s high school transcripts because transcripts are more accurate
in predicting future achievement than standardized tests.
Some people, such as
college professors, admission councilors, test-makers and educators believe
that standardized tests are useful for determining a student's intellectual and
academic level. These supporters of standardized testing advocate that
colleges and schools should use these tests to evaluate their students.
Thus, these tests should be taken into great consideration when admission
councilors are reviewing college applications. According to Richard
Phelps, Ph.D., standardized tests are reliable and good measures of student
achievement; standardized tests avoid teacher bias as well as bias and
subjectivity when the tests are graded (“Estimating the Costs”). Therefore, it is understandable as to why
standardized testing is still seen to be a great indicator of a student’s
future academic success.
On the other hand, many
people believe standardized tests are beginning to loose the credibility of
being accurate predictors of achievement in college and in the future. The SAT
and ACT misrepresent the intellectual and academic capabilities of men and
women. According to Phyllis Rosser,
there is a considerable amount of evidence from studies documenting how women
receive higher grade averages than men in every course they take in high school
and college; however, women’s scores on the SAT have been 50 to 60 points lower
than men’s scores since 1967 (“Standardized Testing”). The SAT is supposed to predict how well all
students will succeed in a university, regardless of a student’s gender. Forms
of standardized testing are supposed to give college admission councilors a
relatively accurate prediction of the grades an applicant would receive in a
college course. Rosser continues in her article saying the Education Testing
service conducted a study in 1991 that showed how the SAT “under predicts
women’s college math grades at every level” (Standardized Testing”). Due to the fact that the test does not give
accurate insight into future success of students based on gender, admission
councilors are receiving an inaccurate prediction of an applicant’s possible
grades in college courses. In addition
to the misrepresentation of collegiate success of the men and women,
standardized tests falsely predict the academic achievement of students with
different ethnic backgrounds. According
to Rosser, students of varying ethnicities have lower test scores than
Caucasians as a result or poor quality preparation and language barriers (“Standardized
Testing”). The SAT and ACT assess a
student’s understanding of the English language. If a foreign or ethnic student does not know
English as extensively as a native speaker, that student is already at a severe
disadvantage, and is more likely to receive a poor score as a result. However, an English second-language student
could be equally as intelligent and successful as a native speaker, yet
admission councilors will only see a low score, indicating that the student
will supposedly do poorly in college.
Academic transcripts serve
as a better too to evaluate a student’s academic capabilities and to get an
idea as to how well a student will do in their college career.
According the essay, “The Rise and Demise of the SAT: The University of California Generates Change
for College Admissions,” the University of California admissions office
realized that an applicant’s high school curriculum and resulting grades are
the best indicators of the student’s success in college. For example, if a student excelled in A.P.
courses and honors courses, then the student will most likely have great
success at college because he or she is well prepared, mentally and
academically; the student will know what work load to expect from a
college-level course, and they have an adequate, or superior amount of
knowledge and intelligence that will enable them to thrive in his or her
academics. Therefore, secondary
education teachers should focus more attention on providing their students with
the knowledge of the subjects so that they will be able to use it in their
college education experience. According
to Diana Payne, standardized tests “may
measure the academic strengths and weaknesses to some degree, but they won't
serve as a remedy to all the instructional time lost preparing students just
for those tests, nothing else” (“Too Much Emphasis”). Due to the fact that academic transcripts are
becoming the more accurate tool in calculating a student’s success, it is
essential that educators spend quality time ensuring their students are
achieving academic success in their course in high school, rather than wasting
time preparing for an inaccurate test.
Students, universities, and
admission councilors would benefit if SATs and ACTs were no longer required on
college applications. First, the
students themselves would avail because they would not be evaluated based on
their test taking skills; instead, they would be evaluated solely on their
knowledge of subjects as well as their extra-curricular activities that enhance
their individuality. Also, they would be
relieved of stress and pressure knowing that their character is not being
assessed by an inaccurate, complicated test. Also, they will not feel the
pressure from parents and schools to receive high scores on the tests. Colleges would also receive more applicants,
because the applicants would feel more confident in their chances of getting
into a school due to their academic knowledge, not due to basic test taking
skills. Lastly, as a result of admission officers relying solely on an
applicant’s academic achievement in high school and their extra-curricular
activities, councilors will fill their school with worthy students who are
willing and able to handle the college’s academic level and course load, rather
than filling the school with students who are merely very skillful in the art
of test taking.
However, it is unlikely that the SAT
and ACT and other forms of standardized testing will be completely disregarded
during the college application process.
Therefore, it would be more likely and ideal that all college admission councilors give applicants the
option to include or exclude all of their standardized test scores; if the
scores are provided, they should be looked at as to only support the grades on
the high school transcripts and the other aspects of the application that make
a student stand out among the rest of the applicants. Universities are beginning to place a higher emphasis on
aspects that make students standout as exemplary individuals rather than their
not-so unique skills of test taking. In fact, more than 800 colleges and
universities no longer require the SAT and more applicants are being asked to
write personalized essays (“More Schools”).
Many schools are test optional, meaning submitting standardized test
scores is not required; Even if a school is test optional, an applicant may
still submit their score if he believes it will only benefit him. There are many examples of schools that are
test optional such as the University of California; if an applicant does submit
a score, it is only used to back-up the high school transcript (Berger). If students
believe that they would benefit from taking a standardized test and then
submitting their test scores, then they should be allowed to have that option,
as well as the option to decide against doing so.
Standardized
testing is becoming outdated and colleges are realizing that the tests give
invalid predictions about the future success of applicants. However, no one
will completely disregard the SAT and the ACT because college admission offices
have relied on the tests for so long.
Although the ideal situation would be that standardized test scores
would never be used to evaluate students’ academic abilities, it is more likely
that colleges will become test-optional.
By embracing this new, trending practice, colleges would be assessing
students via more accurate methods, such as analyzing high school transcripts,
extra curricular activities, student essays, and teacher recommendations. Thus, test-optional colleges would provide
students with a better and more equal chance of college acceptance based on
their academic and extra-curricular success, not on their ability to take
tests.
Works Cited
Berger,
Susan J. "The Rise and Demise of the SAT: the University of California
Generates
Change for College Admissions."
American Educational History Journal 39.1-2
(2012): 165+. Academic OneFile. Web. 6 Mar. 2013.
"More
schools Add Essays by Applicants, Fewer Require Standardized SAT test." Women
in
Higher Education Feb. 2013: 5. Educators Reference Complete.
Web. 7 Mar. 2013.
Payne, Diana. "Schools Are Putting Too Much Emphasis on Standardized
Tests." Christian
Science Monitor 11 May 1999: 14. Academic Search Premier. Web. 10 Mar.
2013.
Phelps,
Richard, Ph.D. "Estimating the Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing
Programs."
Estimating the
Costs and Benefits of Educational Testing Programs. Education Consumers
Foundation, Feb. 2002. Web. 11 Mar.
2013.
Rosser,
Phyllis. "Standardized Testing." The Reader's Companion to U.S.
Women's
History.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 1998. Academic OneFile.
Web. 4 Mar. 2013.
