In today’s world of college admissions, standardized testing, most notably the SAT–a measure of a student’s skill in math, reading, and writing– is often brought up in topics of debate; should colleges look at an applicant’s SAT scores, and if so, how much should it factor in to their final decision of accepting or denying that student? While the SAT is an important indicator of a college applicant’s work ethic and ability to perform under pressure, it should only be one of many differents forms of criteria that colleges look at in order to judge an applicant and their potential as a whole. College admissions officers should not view the applicant solely based off of their SAT score, but instead consider the context behind this singular number.

Students who perform better in their classes and spend the time needed to sharpen their SAT skills will ultimately score a higher score than those who don’t. The SAT, while being different every single year, has a recurring pattern in its questions that incentivizes students to prepare several months beforehand through online or physical resources. Not only that, but the questions on the SAT typically reflect the skills developed in middle school and high school math and english classes, such as the concepts of geometry and algebra appearing consistently throughout both math sections. By offering a different yet similar-structured test to millions of students every year, the College Board gives Colleges a way of separating those who understand essential high school curriculum from those don’t. The time constraint present in the SAT prepares the students for exams in their high school courses as well as their future college courses, as colleges, like high schools, test their students to see if they truly understand the course material.

Despite the correlation between the work that students put in and their SAT scores, there is an obvious flaw in the standardized system: the wealth gap. Whenever you’re shopping online or watching a video, you may encounter an advertisement for either tutoring SAT prep or an SAT prep book. These tools, though helpful for boosting people’s scores, are part of a distinct market that put a dollar cost to them. Often times they’re so expensive that lower or middle class families will decide to not buy them, which provides an obvious learning gap between students who have access to these resources to students who don’t. Not only that, but there is a cost for every SAT that a student wants to take. Students who fail to earn a score that doesn’t satisfy them may retake the SAT as many times as they want, which is unfair to those who cannot afford to spend the unreasonably high amount of money that is needed to take a single SAT. While the College Board has attempted to bridge this gap between the wealthy and the non-wealthy over the last couple of years, this issue is still very much prevalent in school districts across the country. Therefore, a student’s “real potential”, or “college readiness”, as creators of the SAT refer to it as a measure of, should take be a factor of the applicant’s personal situation, extracurricular involvement, and grades on top of this standardized test in order to get a bigger picture of an applicant’s ability to succeed in a given environment.