Several days ago, College Board, the organization responsible for creating and administering most standardized tests for college admissions in the U.S., announced a major change to one of their most popular exams: the Scholastic Assessment Test, or SAT for short. The not-for-profit organization aims to make the exam more accessible, relevant and “student-friendly” by introducing a new digital format with fewer questions. Since historically there have been quite a few complaints about the exam not catering to an international student body, despite the fact that a lot of students who take the SAT are non-native English speakers, the College Board hopes this change will make the exam easier to take. Now, there might be quite a few of us who took the original SAT who might feel like the change is unjust and would allow future students easier access to quality education. However, I think it is also time to reflect on whether the SAT has ever been a just metric of academic excellence.

Back in 2020, during the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdowns, most U.S. universities waived their SAT requirements. This led to a tremendous increase in students applying for top universities across the country, especially students with American citizenship. This tells us two things about the SAT: 1) it is probably equally inaccessible to students in the U.S. as it is to international students, 2) it creates a barrier for students from various backgrounds to access quality higher education. These assumptions are actually not far from the truth, which lies at the origin of the SAT exam.

The format of the SAT was created by Carl Brigham, an American psychologist from the early 20th century, who dedicated most of his work to assessing intelligence. He created IQ tests that involve solving puzzles and codes, as well as math problems and high-level English language riddles. The first experimental exams he administered to army recruits led him to conclude that there was a racial factor involved in intelligence, since white Americans scored higher on the test than most African-Americans and recent immigrants from South-Eastern Europe. He did not account for the fact that white Americans in the 1930s had significantly better access to education and that not every participant was a fluent English speaker at the time of the test. By the time the test was developed to serve as a college admission exam, Brigham had backed away from his original hypothesis but had not made significant changes to the format of the test to reflect his new viewpoint that intelligence is more multidimensional than he originally anticipated. Thus, the SAT exam, at its core, discriminates against people whose native language is not English.

Keeping that in mind, it becomes even more apparent that the SAT might not be as adequate a measure of “college readiness” as it aims to be. Developmental psychologist Howard Gardner highlights the importance of “contextualized testing” and how standardized exams provide an assessment that is the complete opposite of it. In his work The Development and Education of the Mind, Chapter 19: “Assessment in Context”, he concludes that the standardized testing reflects an outdated view of developmental psychology that “it [makes] sense to believe in “inborn” human abilities, in a smooth, probably linear curve of learning from infancy to old age, in a hierarchy of disciplines, and in the desirability of assessing potential and achievement under carefully controlled and maximally decontextualized conditions.” He continues on to argue that modern psychology research has undermined this view and calls for contextualized testing, i.e. examination of one’s proficiency within familiar conditions and based on their prior experience and education, instead of on a generalized and overarching assumptions of the developmental abilities of people of a certain age.

There exists literature that finds strong correlation between a high SAT score and first year college GPA, such as this paper by Kobrin et al. It concludes that there is a higher correlation in first-year GPA and SAT score in more selective,private institutions, which almost encourages universities to elevate their requirements if they want to contribute better to the students’ development. It is worth noting that this research was requested and sponsored by the College Board.

In September 2000, author Alfie Kohn released a statement for American Education Week, in which he gives an assessment of that generalized view of academic achievement and standardized tests’ accuracy in providing an adequate assessment. The trends and concerns he lists in his statement are true to this day and have even escalated. One such concern is that there is a clear correlation between economic status and success rate on standardized tests: “When the stakes rise, people seek help anywhere they can find it, and companies eager to profit from this desperation by selling test-prep materials and services have begun to appear on the scene, most recently tailoring their products to state exams. Naturally, affluent families, schools, and districts are better able to afford such products, and the most effective versions of such products, thereby exacerbating the inequity of such testing. ”

Other points Kohn makes that are worth reflecting upon are the fact that timed standardized tests only measure superficial thinking and cannot provide a rate of success, rather a rank (which creates a very clear economic incentive for schools and universities to push for more preparation or demand higher scores from students). It becomes clear that tests that are not created to reflect holistically on a student’s preparation and educational background are mostly reflective of privilege rather than intellectual ability or preparedness for college. It also leads to a point made by Cameron Graham and Dean Neu that standardized testing constructs “governable people”, especially because of the heightened social scrutiny over the results and the future outcomes they bring beyond academics.

Therefore, it has become quite apparent that there is a higher correlation between socioeconomic status and a good result than between academic achievement and success on the exam. It has even reached the point where celebrities would spend tens of thousands of dollars to ensure their children receive the highest possible scores, even if through cheating. Such was the scandal over unfair admissions in 2019, when Felicity Huffman and Lori Laughlin were involved in what the U.S. Justice Department called a “multimillion-dollar scheme to cheat college admissions.” Yet back in 1972, sociologist and journalist Michael S. Schudson made that same observation: that the history and format of standardized testing is about “organizing meritocracy” and profiting from it.

Profiting from the standardized admissions tests is actually concerning, since the College Board is supposed to be a not-for-profit organization. However, the controversial online AP exams of 2020 shed light on the inner workings of the organization and its disproportionate profit. “Unjust enrichment” was even part of the actions in court when the College Board were sued for the incompetent testing process (see Sixth Clause of Action).

Taking into consideration the complex and questionable history of the SAT, it is difficult to accept that the new format of the exam would benefit students. While College Board attempts to address such accessibility issues of the SAT with the move to a digital exam, it does not change the fact that native English speakers and in particular students who have followed an American curriculum have an advantage over international students who have not. And even going digital is already based on the privileged assumption that every student with an interest in attaining U.S. higher education has access to a device that can support the exam or preparation materials. As such, increased accessibility does not immediately go hand in hand with making the SAT equitable or inclusive. The real question regarding the exam is still: do we even need it?