Many colleges and universities have dropped their SAT and ACT requirements after COVID. While there are many problems with standardized tests, they exist for a reason, and their removal has caused problems in college admissions. 

It’s harder for colleges to tell between which students might thrive or might struggle without test scores. Highschool grades are not enough to determine how students will do in college. Standardized tests have been shown to be better predictors of college success than high school GPAs. Many are still opposed to SATs and other standardized tests because of concerns that they are racially and economically biased. However, standardized tests are less biased than teacher recommendations, extracurricular activities, college essays, experience, and more. Nomatter a student’s racial or economic status, they have to take a standardized test, but many do not have opportunities to get the other standards of admission. Also, other standards of admission are more reliant on the specific opinion of a few people, while a standardized test is just about how many questions you get right or wrong. Standardized tests often reveal clearly which students will excel regardless of their grades. 

The main argument against standardized testing is that it can also be used to keep disadvantaged students from getting into higher education. In 1982, the SAT had a question that everyone who answered got wrong. This is because they made a mistake on a test, and asked a question that has many justifiable answers, and is a paradox in math that still surprises many. They ended up rescoring 300,000 tests and throwing out this question. However, this reduced SAT scores as the number of questions was different. Even though the students only lost a few points,  at the time many high level colleges had tight SAT threshold requirements. This loss was enough to keep students who weren’t at any fault from getting into certain colleges because the SAT made a mistake. Stories like this help build arguments against Standardized testing, but it is still a helpful tool. Many people either think Standardized tests should be entirely thrown away, or that they are very important, but neither side is the full scope of the issue. Both Standardized test scores and other standards of admissions are both important, and neither can be regarded as better or worse than the other. 

Cites

https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/rel/Products/Region/northwest/Publication/3835

https://nytimes.com/2024/01/07/briefing/the-misguided-war-on-the-sat.html

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-sat-problem-that-everybody-got-wrong/