I find it a little hypocritical that the college admissions officers get together to talk about how to take the stress off of college admissions. Moreover, they've offered no true solutions. To me, they could start by eliminating the SAT as any kind of valid indicator of student performance. The SAT (it used to be called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, but once it was shown to be neither a scholastic test nor an indicator of aptitude, the name was changed to simply SAT) has been shown to test nothing but how well a student takes the SAT. As institutions of higher learning and the supposed centers of American idealism, I find it disturbing that they continue to rely on an antiquated and irrelevant statistical measure to decide, even in part, who is admitted to their ranks.

The difference between a 1340 and a 1350 is one question. Don't tell me that the 1340 kid doesn't deserve to get in to Harvard. Yet with the deluge of applications they continue to cling to this method of eliminating "unqualified" students. Harvard would like their applicants to spend more time on meaningful activities rather the puffing up their resume. I think if they would make more of an effort to have those activities increase one's chances of admission instead of ignoring anyone who doesn't reach a certain score on a meaningless test. They are also disturbed that kids with financial advantages are prohibitive favorites for having the best resume. Well, if you ignore the SAT then parents aren't dropping thousands of dollars on courses, books and tutors.

I realize it's a hell of a lot easier for these colleges to decide who's in and who's out using the test, but isn't a college supposed to work for what's right and not what's easy?
- posted by levinson @ 12/07/2000 07:27:00 AM