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... There is enormous pressure felt by millions of college potentials each year when they are about to take the SAT. Sometimes this one test of aptitude is emphasized so highly by high school counselors and teachers that students feel obligated to get tutors and take SAT prep classes such as Kaplan to enhance their performance on the test. But isn’t this just making the SAT a test of preparation, rather than a test of aptitude? ... Many college admissions officers have been wondering these same questions and an enormous debate has erupted about the use of the SAT in the college admissions process. Because of the growing trend of colleges not using the SAT as an admissions requirement, high school counselors need to focus student attention on other aspects of college admission instead of having an applicant’s focus be primarily on the SAT.
Although the criticism of the SAT had not been so public in recent years, there is an overwhelming debate centered on the use of the SAT as a college admission standard that all high school counselors need to be aware of. The recent trend is for many colleges not to require the SAT and many students aren’t aware that this is happening because they don’t spend time researching the use of the SAT. ... Many years ago, smaller colleges such as Bates, Bowdoin, and Mount Holyoke decided to drop the SAT as one of their entrance requirements. ... Atkinson, the president of the University of California, decided to waive the SAT as an admission standard that the public started to pay attention to this new development and debate about how effective the SAT is in predicting a college student’s success. Atkinson and many of his colleagues are opposed to the SAT because they feel that it does not measure what it is supposed to. ... But Atkinson believes that the SAT has become nothing more than a “test of preparation” (Atkinson 2) due to the million dollar business of SAT preparation courses such as Kaplan or the Princeton Review.
Not only are children being coached how to take the SAT through these preparatory classes, but teachers are now being taught to “teach to test” (Miller 1). ... For years, supporters of the SAT have claimed that the SAT was a valid predictor of how well a student would perform during their freshman year in college. ... This is because the SAT does not measure certain qualities that lead to success, such as hard work and good study habits. Although the SAT is said to be a measure of a person’s intelligence, Sternberg, a psychologist that studies intelligence, believes that “non-traditional groups may demonstrate their true academic aptitudes in ways not shown on the most widely-used standardized tests such as the SAT” (Hunter and Samter 25). Sternberg believes that other aspects that contribute to intelligence are problem solving abilities and creativity, both of which the SAT does not measure. ... This contributes too many “false negative” SAT scores, “i. ... It is unfortunate that these students will be rejected from some of their top schools because of their performance on the SAT. It is sad because they are very talented in many areas but they do not have any way of demonstrating this on the SAT.
Approximate Word count = 2676
Approximate Pages = 10.7
(250 words per page double spaced)
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