The sentence, “[The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)] exams provide a path to opportunities, financial support and scholarships, in a way that’s fair to all students” found on the College Board website, the facilitating organization of the SATs, is flawed in itself. No, not in spelling or grammar, but in ideology. SATs, for the purposes of this argument, have become the poster child of standardized testing. However, in order to understand why the College Board’s statement is the cause of the downfall of the American education system, it is important to understand its background.

The first SAT was administered June 23, 1926. At the time of its inception, the SAT was committed to giving universities a snapshot of the applicant’s knowledge on a leveled field. The SATs originally had a good purpose of leveling the playing field. As they became more popular, entrepreneurs saw an opportunity to profit off of the burgeoning industry of standardized testing, causing the original purpose of the standardized test to quickly became skewed. The result of the efforts of these entrepreneurs are companies like the Princeton Review and Kaplan, who promise to raise the test scores of their clients through training and tutoring.

At the crossroads of an attempt to “level” the American education system and the attempt of companies to make a profit off of the hysteria of high school students, we find why the above statement is counter-productive. In attempting to provide an equal opportunity for all high school students applying to college through positive intentions, the College Board has worked to convince admissions offices across the country that SAT scores should serve as one of the largest indicators of academic success. Unfortunately, the College Board has not “leveled” the playing field as a result, but instead, elevated it to another dimension of hysteria and competition. Yes, I understand that it might be difficult to compare a Hawaiian student to a Minnesotan student without using some sort of standard.

However, after years of hearing teachers complain that to “teach to the test” is to deduct from the American education system what once made it so special, I believe that it is time to see the SATs and standardized testing in general, for what they really are. The SATs are just another way for a student to express themselves in the laundry list that is demanded of them in an ever-increasingly competitive academic world. While I concur that at the moment there seems to be no alternative to the idea of the SATs, maybe the fact that there is no alternative to a stressful rite of passage for most American high school juniors is an indicator that something has gone awry.

Written by Noah Fitzgerel, Editorials Editor