Does anyone else remember the dread of signing up to take the SAT exam on those early Saturday mornings in high school? Or the unspoken competition between classmates and the horror of waiting for your scores to be released? If you’re like me, you probably wish standardized testing had been abolished when we were applying to college. Well, that wish is finally becoming a reality for many high school students across the country: As of July 2021, more than two-thirds of colleges and universities in the United States no longer require SAT test results for 2022 admission.
Since 1926, the SAT has been considered a pinnacle quantitative tool to measure college success and determine students’ futures. However, many criticisms have been voiced about the multiple-choice exam throughout the years — notably, the gender and racial biases embedded within the test. Given that the SAT has historical roots in racism, classism, and sexism, it’s worth examining why the SAT even exists in the first place – and why it’s problematic to require students to take it for college admission.
Removing the SAT requirement could help reduce the barrier to entry for students applying to college, especially for historically disadvantaged populations. So what, exactly, makes the SAT problematic, and what does the removal of the test requirement mean for college students today?
The origins of the SAT are inherently problematic, racist, and classist.
According to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the SAT began in 1923 thanks to Carl C. Brigham, a psychology professor at Princeton University, who is considered the “father” of the test. At the time, Brigham was helping Harvard professor Robert Yerkes conduct IQ tests for the American Army recruits in order to choose officer candidates for the Army and stratify intelligence data. He felt that the American education system was failing (note: because of the number of immigrants coming to America), which motivated him to create a quantitative test to measure and standardize intelligence. In the study, he analyzed the Army IQ test results by race and found that “the Nordic race group” was superior to all other racial groups at the time. It’s evident that Brigham’s findings — and the true origins of the SAT — were rooted in scientific racism all along.
In 1923, Brigham was commissioned by the College Board to create a test that all high school students would take, which is now widely known as the SAT. He originally named it the “Scholastic Aptitude Test” in 1926, but was later renamed the “Scholastic Assessment Test” in 1993 because College Board didn’t want to associate the test as a way to measure innate intelligence with the word “aptitude.” (At the time “aptitude” became associated with the outdated thought that students had an inherent amount of intelligence that could be measured by the SAT, which turned out to be false).
In 1993, the College Board President Donald M. Stewart said, “We hope this action sends a strong message…that it is wrong to think of the SAT as a measure of IQ.”
Ironically, Brigham regretted making the test, but it still spread like wildfire in the U.S.
In 1930, Brigham went on to recant creating the SAT because — shockingly — the test did not take into account people from multilingual, multiethnic, and socioeconomically diverse backgrounds. Isn’t it ironic that even the creator of the SAT admitted the test had a bias, yet, millions of students have had to take this test in order to get into college?
Despite Brigham regretting his hand in developing the SAT, by the late 1930s, all Ivy League colleges were requiring candidates to take the SAT to determine scholarship. And after Brigham’s passing in 1943, the Educational Testing Services (ETS) implemented the SAT requirement around the U.S. By 1960, the University of California began requiring that all applicants take the SAT. This test became the hegemonic force that it is as a result of powerful universities (such as the UC system) adopting it for applications; thus, resulting in the SAT becoming the gold standard for college admissions.
According to the College Board, 1.5 million students took the SAT in the high school class of 2021, but in 2022, it will no longer be required at a lot of colleges and universities. While this is great news for many students who would rather not sit in a classroom for 3 hours, we cannot forget the racist and sexist roots of the SAT.
The SAT has a history of perpetuating gender inequality.
Despite women having higher grades in high school and college, women’s test scores have been consistently lower on the SAT. According to Art Sawyer, the co-founder of Compass Education Group, “proportionally 45% more males are in the 1400-1600 score range than females,” and a 1989 study by Phyllis Rosser on gender bias and test-taking found that many of the questions on the test exhibited differences in “correct answer” rates that ultimately favored male test-takers. Rosser found that females generally did better on questions about relationships, aesthetics, and the humanities, while males did better on questions about sports, the physical sciences, and business.
A 1976 gender gap report by Educational Testing Service (ETS) researcher Carol Dwyer also found “an unconscious form of sexism” underlying the test. Reportedly, ETS policy-makers attempted to make the Verbal section “more balanced” in favor of males and added questions pertaining to politics, business, and sports.
In the report, Dwyer concluded: “When females show the superior performance, ‘balancing’ is required; when males show the superior performance, no adjustments are necessary.”
Sexist messaging and gender stereotypes — both subtle and explicit — have appeared on the SAT.
Not only do women’s SAT scores affect their actual chances of getting accepted to colleges, but the test’s subliminal messaging might even be affecting how women view their own intelligence and abilities. The New York Times revealed that on a recent SAT exam, there was one “math question involving a chart showing more boys than girls in math classes overall.” Another question in the verbal section “asked students to analyze a 19th-century polemic arguing that women’s place was in the home.”
Although one might not see gender bias on the surface of these questions at a first glance, the American Psychological Association (APA) reports that these harmful stereotypes can subtly threaten — and even hinder — women test-takers. When women read questions with implicit bias, it stops them in their tracks and might cause them to lose time; in a 2006 study, the APA found that “negative stereotypes raise inhibiting doubts and high-pressure anxieties in a test-taker’s mind, resulting in the phenomenon of ‘stereotype threat.’”
Over the past few decades, men have reportedly scored about 30 points more than women on the math section of the SAT. In the 2021 math section, men had an average score of 537, and women had an average score of 519, showing a 19-point difference. The APA found in a 1996 study on “Fighting the Gender Gap” that “Female students are twice as likely as males to be disqualified by minimum cutoff score requirements, even though their overall academic performance tends to be higher.” Despite SAT scores only being one aspect of a candidate’s application, they can impact a student’s eligibility and the outcome of their future — and it appears women are at a disadvantage.
Is standardized testing for college admission really necessary? Students and educators are divided.
Recently, many universities are putting an end to the SAT testing requirement for the applications, which has sparked questions from students and educators. In 2021, the University of California announced that they are no longer going to be using standardized tests for admissions decisions based on arguments that high school grades are a less-biased predictor for college admissions.
Before this decision, lawsuits were filed by Compton Unified School District on behalf of four students and six community organizations claiming that the SAT violates California’s anti-discrimination statute. The students argued that the SAT is not a good predictor of a student’s potential success and presented research showing that the standardized test has inherent racial, economic, and gender biases.
Despite the UC taking such a significant step, there are many schools that still require SAT test scores. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been at the center of these conversations. MIT had suspended the SAT or ACT requirements in 2020 and 2021 for applicants due to the Covid-19 pandemic, however, it recently reinstated the requirement, citing the importance of test scores to their admission process.
Some say the “test-optional” route can help create a more even playing field for college applicants.
Test-optional practices for many college and universities were first prompted due to the pandemic as a way of helping reduce the barrier to college entry. Robin McMillen, the director of TRIO Upward Bound and TRIO talent search at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, tells Her Campus, “The elimination of testing also eliminates a barrier for low socio-economic students.”
The test-optional route can help encourage students to apply to colleges they wouldn’t have previously considered. In a way, McMillen says this change has helped create a more equal playing field.
“The removal of the SAT requirement will lighten the load [for] students, as they are burdened by multiple stressors during this time of rising mental health diagnoses,” she says. “There is an abundance of standardized testing in our high schools, resulting in test overload. In many cases, ending the testing requirement eliminates a barrier to postsecondary education.”
McMillen adds, “By eliminating the testing requirement, students stand on the merits of their past/present performance in educational settings,” instead of their ability to perform under pressure.
Educators say that the “test-optional” route is also more pragmatic.
Brian Galvin, M. Ed., the Chief Academic Officer for Varsity Tutors, is a lifelong educator who has taught hundreds of students how to prepare for the SAT, ACT, GMAT, and GRE. Galvin tells Her Campus, “The move toward ‘test-optional’ has been a lot more pragmatic than ideological.”
With many exams being canceled due to the pandemic, many schools saw it as a good move to go with the “test-optional” policy so that they could still receive an influx of applications without hindering students from taking the exam. “‘Test optional’ gives schools a lot of flexibility,” Galvin says. “[Schools] can still consider and prioritize high scores, but also get access to fantastic applicants who may have been intimidated to apply with their score or who don’t have a score at all.”
However, test-optional policies might create a set of new challenges.
Does removing the SAT or instilling a “test-optional” route ensure an equal playing field for college applicants? According to Galvin, the answer is unclear; test-optional policies might create a whole new set of issues for students.
“[Test-optional] adds a new degree of uncertainty for applicants: what sounds like an applicant-friendly phrase (‘you get to choose!’) really just puts another potentially-stressful set of decisions on the student’s shoulders,” he tells Her Campus.
He adds that although removing the test requirement may make some aspects more equal for students, it will force schools to look more closely at other measures of ability — and students will need to be up to par.
“Now, schools will tend to look more at things like academic rigor of coursework, GPA, letters of recommendation, and community involvement and leadership,” he says. Within each of these criteria points, privilege and bias can still leave students at a disadvantage during the application process. “The real issue for underrepresented groups isn’t necessarily that tests tend to favor the privileged, but might be that lots of admissions criteria do,” Galvin tells Her Campus.
Here’s what people think about the new changes.
In 2021, Yahoo Finance and The Harris Poll asked 1,000 readers about their thoughts on standardized tests and found that 60% of Americans believe that colleges should drop the SAT. Additionally, 68% of students are more likely to support using grades over test scores for college applications.
Alessandra Licetti, 20, transferred to Purdue University after attending classes in Lima, Peru, for her first academic year. “I applied to a bunch of colleges, and because I was already in college, I chose to apply to test-optional schools. The only schools that didn’t accept me were schools that had mandatory SAT,” Licetti tells Her Campus.
According to Licetti, the SAT barely felt like a way to quantify her ability to succeed at an American university.
“I truly did not understand why I would have to take [the SAT] since I was already in college [in Peru],” she tells Her Campus. “I deemed it unfair to have to prove my academic worth by paying thousands of dollars for the actual exam and for preparation for it.”
For many students, it’s hard to imagine applying to college without taking a standardized test. Now, many students will no longer have hundreds of hours — and dollars — to prep for the SAT, and we’re bound to see some changes come from it. Everyone deserves equal access to the college admissions process, and nobody deserves to be hindered by a single exam — especially one with a racist history and inherent gender bias.
Whether you opt to take the SAT or not, remember: The test has problematic roots, and is far from the only measure of your intelligence or ability to succeed.
Experts
Robin McMillen, Director of TRIO Upward Bound, Clarion University of Pennsylvania
Brian Galvin, M.Ed., Chief Academic Officer for Varsity Tutors
Sources
Alessandra Licetti, 20, transferred to Purdue University