THE EDUCATORS who initially promoted the SAT wanted college to not be merely a haven for the privileged, but a honing ground for the country's best and brightest, a vision steeped in America's meritocratic spirit.
Over the decades that vision has evolved, and it continues to guide most college admissions today. But the College Board, which owns the SAT, is reforming the test, and in those changes is a serious threat this principle: The "New SAT" (as the College Board has clevery called it) is riddled with alterations that could widen the score gaps between the rich and poor. Indeed, the problems that the new test could pose to admissions departments across the country threaten to exacerbate the inequities that already plague our educational system. While some selective colleges could stick to their equitable vision simply by reconsidering the test, other institutions cannot. The vigilance of the entire educational community, therefore, is needed to ensure the new test's fairness.
With the New SAT, which begins administration in March 2005, the College Board is attempting to make the test reflect the skills colleges want to see in applicants. The Board hopes that this will gear high school curricula more toward college. The SAT, therefore, is becoming a full-fledged "achievement" test that assesses not what logical talents students naturally have, but rather what skills students have learned in the classroom.
But in addition to bringing out differences between students, many changes in the test could bring out more differences between classrooms. The New SAT will include specialized terms such as "simile" or "union of two sets" in the revamped math section and new grammar and essay sections, deemphasizing the importance of understanding the concept of a problem in favor of having been taught the term for it. The writing section will award the highest scores to students who have learned the dry SAT II writing style. The inclusion of higher-level algebra now not only tests mastery of basic logic in higher-level math, but whether schools offer enough classes in it. The fiction section now can include selections from authors like James Joyce and William Faulkner, handing out points to students from schools that assign those authors (those with enough resources to provide many AP English opportunities). SAT prep coaches -- access to whom is often cited as a major testing inequity between rich and poor -- are thrilled that the New SAT will make them more necessary. While it is not yet certain that the rich-poor score gap will widen, it is clear which type of student these particular additions endanger.
As Seppy Basili, vice preisdent of the test-prep company Kaplan, said yesterday in The Chronicle of Higher Education, "One has to be concerned that the new SAT will widen these gaps rather than closing them... it's a caution we have to make."
In an interview, Admissions Dean John Blackburn emphasized that we must wait for results to determine the test's impact and that he believes that the New SAT will not widen score gaps between the rich and the poor. He continued to say, however, that the University is prepared to deal with the possibility. Because more highly selective schools consider test scores among a wide number of factors, they can easily reassess how the SAT fits into the equation, Blackburn explained. He stressed the SAT's limited role in the University's admissions decisions, saying, "so much more goes into a decision than just the SAT."
But for universities with less comprehensive admissions considerations that rely more heavily on test scores, emerging discrepancies would pose a daunting threat to poorer students. "With rolling admission in the first year [after the New SAT] -- I wouldn't want to be in that situation," Blackburn said. An admissions dean in that position, he said, "just doesn't know what [he or she] is going to get."
While some universities would be fully able to take precautions for any possible changes, many would not, scrambling to find the right balances and in the process leaving many poorer students behind.
The test changes are potentially endangering the applications of thousands of poorer students applying to universities with more formulaic, high-volume or rolling admissions. Especially considering that some states by statute require a minimum SAT score to attend public universities, the potential dangers are huge. If gaps do end up widening, by the time hampered admissions offices or legislatures readjust their standards, for many it would be too late.
As an educational community with common goals and ideals, all universities, regardless of admissions policy, must minimize this risk and take precaution now by insuring that the New SAT is fair to all groups before its administration. The potential risk to our educational vision is too great to act after the fact. If we do, we not only shirk our absolute dedication to equality, but we step away from the ideals that founded the SAT to begin with.
Michael Slaven's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at mslaven@cavalierdaily.com.
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