New York Times essay

Molly Lin

Wishyut Pitawanik

Should Colleges Use Admission Criteria Other Than SAT Scores and Grades? 

March 9, 2015

In the US and some universities in Canada, they use SAT scores and school grades as a requirement to let students into their schools. Some people think is a good way to see how students do in academics. However, I disagree with this statement for the following two reasons.

The first reason is you can’t judge a person’s ability just on SAT scores and school grades. Even if they got good SAT scores or good grades in school, it does not mean that they are going to do well in their future school years. It can simply mean that they are good at testing, which does not mean they are really learning the materials; they can just memorize a lot of vocabulary and practice a lot of SAT math questions. On the other hand, some people are not so good at testing; they get nervous when they see long essays and lots of math questions. But that does not mean they are not good at English or Math, they might practice a lot but still not get good scores. Also, the SAT does not show every part of the students; it only partly reveals the academic part of them. How about the other parts, like social skills, sports, music, etc., other parts of the student where the SAT scores can’t judge? There are a lot of parts of people not only the academics, so this is the first reason why I think colleges or universities should use admission criteria other than SAT scores and school grades.

But some people might say, if we don’t use SAT scores, how are we going to know if the students are meeting the requirements? The SAT uses a lot of academic vocabulary that we don’t normally use in our daily lives. Some people are just better at taking tests than others, so it is unfair for some people who are simply not good at taking tests and getting high scores even when they put a lot of effort in it.  It does not mean that they are not good at reading or writing essays for class projects. It just means that they are not good at taking tests. They can do other things like collaboratively, using technology, or without time pressure. Another option is to set the admissions requirements so they are related to what they are going to study. For example, if they are going to study art, make them do an advanced art project or if they want to study music, let them play a very challenging music piece to go into music school instead of taking the SAT.  If they are international students, let them do an English test without using too many technical or advanced words to see if they are qualified to be in your school.

The second reason is that some schools don’t see the SAT as a good measure of the skills they require. Other schools recognize that the SAT limits their applicant pools and gives unfair advantages to students from families that can afford test prep courses. So this is the second reason why I support my statement in the first paragraph, which is you can’t judge a person’s ability just on SAT scores and school grades.

In the conclusion, I don’t seek SAT scores as a requirement to go to universities for the two reasons. First, you can’t judge a person’s ability through SAT, the second reason is some families are not able to afford SAT classes for their children, while other students are simply not good at taking tests and can’t perform well on them. It is an unfair requirement for some people, so this is why I disagree that we use SAT scores and school grades as a requirement to let students into college.

Bibliography:

Grove, Allen. "Low SAT or ACT Scores? Check Out These Test-Optional Colleges." Web. 12 Mar. 2015.