When You Can't Afford to Conquer the SAT

My son is graduating high school this year. Last spring he took the ACT and on Saturday he sat for the SAT. For both tests he went in cold. No prep classes and probably (despite my urging) not a single minute of review or study guide work. We decided he'd try both tests and concentrate re-test efforts, if we felt he needed them, on the test he felt better about. He's lucky to be very bright and to be a logical thinker. He's aways been a good test taker.

But what we found last spring after the ACT, is though he more than met the minimum requirement for admission to his top three choices, he did not achieve what I'd call a competitive score. His GPA is pretty much the same, a bit lackluster, so I was hoping his always stellar test-taking would help push him up the admissions ranks a bit. It will be the end of October before we have word on the SAT, but he felt better about the SAT than he did the ACT. So it looks like either a strong score will round out his application, or I'll be dumping some money into a prep class, and of course a retake. I've thought about making him help pay, but we'll see.

Mulling over all of this in the shower on Sunday morning, and again on Monday morning, and pretty much incessantly these days, I thought, how fair are these college entrance exams? Forget the alleged biases over the years, many of which are certainly legitimate. I'm talking about the whole process. Consider this: We are a middle class family. I am an educator, my husband an irrigation manager. We are the working middle class. I have already shelled out the cost of each of these assessments, one of them with a late fee. There is a good chance I might have to spend a little more, for another test and possibly a prep class. It's not easy, but it's doable for me. Lucky for us, we only have to go through it once. One kid, one college application season.

It got me thinking, what are families who can't afford it supposed to do? What if they can't afford classes or retakes? You can get waivers for both tests, if you can provide financials proving hardship. But the classes, that's a different story. I think what it comes down to is another disadvantage for low income or poor families. I think back to when I was in high school. At the time, my parents were pretty fresh off a divorce, and they suffered major economic hardship as a result. We did not by any means live in poverty, but money was pretty darn tight. Anything extra came out of my own pocket via money I made working summer and part-time jobs. I may have been the only one among all my friends who didn't take a prep class. I scored adequately, but not competitively. I relied on really good grades and a great resume. My SAT score was nothing to look twice at.

SAT used to be called the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Aptitude can be defined as an ability or capacity to do something, a readiness or quickness in learning. Some definitions even include intelligence or innate talent. Anyway you interpret the word, it pretty much implies its your readiness for and likelihood of learning. Now, the SAT is simply called the SAT. It's not an acronym anymore, the aptitude is gone from the acronym and seemingly gone from the purpose. It's just three letters known to everyone for what it is, an expensive college entrance exam.

Many of the students who do really well on the SAT or ACT spend money to have skilled educators teach them how to crack the test. They learn how to channel their strengths into answering just the right questions, learn specific reading strategies to conquer the test, and get specialized tutoring sessions for the areas they most need a boost. The students who can't afford prep sessions are left to fend for themselves- free practice tests from the website and tips from their teachers and classmates.

In essence, most kids have to study for a test that's supposed to measure their college preparedness. There are so many things wrong with this scenario. First, if the aim is college readiness, the test should measure whatever criteria demonstrates this supposed readiness. It should not be something students need to cram for to get into college. Moreover, if students need to learn something special for the test, be it strategies or content, it is not a college readiness exam. Either that or high schools across the country are not preparing kids for college, and I'm not just talking about low performing schools. I'm talking about all of them. Prep school students I would think, are some of the most common patrons of SAT prep classes.

Second, if indeed kids need to take classes to prepare, kids from low socioeconomic families have a distinct disadvantage. They simply cannot afford the classes, and their scores are more likely to be indicative of the original intent, their aptitude. No classes, no cracking the test.  In the fairly recent move by some universities to make their admissions process test-optional, one study found students who were non-submitters of SAT or ACT scores were mostly from the highest and lowest income groups. That same study reported that students who were non submitters were more likely than the submitters to be the first in their families to go to college (Jaschik, 2014). This begs the question, why are students from low income families avoiding the tests? Is it financial or academic, or both?

There are plenty of articles and studies refuting the value of the SAT and ACT as a predictor of college success. Joseph Soares (2011), a professor at Wake Forest University, wrote a book about it. The higher education community is starting to warm up to the idea they don't need these tests to choose their freshman class. According to Soares (2012) "Though many parents and academics are surprised by this, it remains true that high school grades have always done a better job in predicting college grades than test scores." So why should kids be paying to play the game when they already have what it takes?  Why can't their high school record stand on its own?

It's not widely accepted yet, that's why. Some reports are that up to 200 colleges nationwide are test-optional. But find a circle of high school seniors and their parents around any neighborhood school, and you're likely to hear the buzz. All of my son's friends have taken at least one of the tests at least once or twice. No one in my kid's circle, or my teacher circles, has even considered the idea of skipping the SAT and the ACT. It just doesn't happen. Many of the colleges, at least around here, still do require it. So kids with means have the chance to take, prep, and retake. The others, not so lucky, will have to hope they can do it on their own. Not fair.



References:

Jaschik, S (2014). Virtually no difference. Inside Higher Ed

Soares, J (2012). For tests that are predictively powerful and without social prejudice. Research & Practice in Assessment, 7. 

Soares, J (2011). SAT Wars: The Case for Test-Optional College Admissions, Teachers College Press.