There are many factors that can affect a test score. These factors can vary from the amount of sleep you received to how anxious you are. They can include such trivial things as an adverse reaction to caffeine or being ill. There are many factors that will result in your test score, and only one of them is academic ability. Considering this, I do not believe that any standardized test including the SAT for college applications reflects your true potential.

One of the biggest reasons that I don’t believe the SAT can reflect your true potential in any capacity is because true potential is reflected in the work field. Potential is brought to fruition by action. Practicing something in theory and actually doing it are two vastly different things and no one can truly prepare for the act of something simply by learning about it in theory. Because of that, the SAT, which is a test designed to measure academic ability, will be unable to measure practical ability and should not be seriously considered as a basis for someone’s true potential. Someone’s performance on a lengthy, high stakes test is not indicative of someone’s potential to perform in real life situations.

Another reason that the SAT doesn’t reflect your potential is because being a good test taker, while not a practical skill for life after education, can boost your test score considerably. Many people are simply bad test takers, while some find themselves overcome with anxiety, and some are just bad at narrowing down answers. Being a good test taker has little to do with academic knowledge and doesn’t necessarily effect someone’s life after schooling but can effectively tank grades even if they’re very intelligent.

Another major reason the SAT is an unfair representation of potential is because often people with learning disabilities are either not aware and cannot adjust properly, or do not have proper accommodations to take the test in the first place. Many people with cognitive disabilities such as dyslexia or ADHD don’t have proper adjustments to help them take the test fairly. For people with ADHD, especially undiagnosed or unmedicated ADHD, sitting still for hours to take this standardized test can seem an insurmountable feat. While it may seem simple to be diagnosed with these disorders to receive the disability accommodations, it can actually be an extremely lengthy and expensive process. For people with dyslexia, it can be nearly impossible to even finish reading the material by the end of the test, thoroughly ensuring a much lower score on most standardized tests.

All of these factors considered, I wholeheartedly do not believe that the SAT can possibly reflect true potential for college applications. There are simply too many factors to include or account for, and all the SAT truly measures is how good of a test taker someone is – which is completely independent of their academic knowledge or ability.