I scan through the jungle that awaits me, making note of the lethal geometry problems and the most dense historical passage. I grab my handy pencil and embark on my quest, leaping from question to question as if I am climbing along the sheer edge of a cliff. I keep an eye on my watch, hoping not to fall behind, and the stress mounts each step of the way.
Like an explorer working their way through the jungle, standardized exams such as the SAT or ACT can be grueling for many students, acting as the culmination of months of practice tests and binging Khan Academy videos. Although these exams represent one aspect of a student’s ability, they are far from revealing each student’s true potential. Standardized exams do not allow students to demonstrate creativity or think outside the box, nor do they allow students to demonstrate their knack for other subjects they may be more passionate about. Furthermore, the SAT and ACT cannot account for how well one works in a team or determine the amount of dedication a student is willing to put into their work. At their core, standardized exams can only accurately measure how well one performs on that specific test. The SAT Writing and Language section is great for evaluating a student’s ability to answer quick, grammar-based questions, but it is not nearly as strong an indicator of a student’s potential to write captivating essays as the student’s performance in an English class focused on that skill. Standardized exams only provide one small glimpse into a subset of a student’s abilities, lacking the ability to accurately account for the student’s true potential.
The potential of a student is far more nuanced than what can be described by a single SAT score. The SAT cannot capture my imaginative design ideas from being on the school’s robotics club, my motivational words to teammates on the tennis team, or my steadfast dedication to debugging programs. Personal traits are not captured at all on the SAT but are fundamental to a student’s ability to succeed and reach their full potential. Instead of working on developing their skills for subjects they are interested in pursuing, many students feel forced to spend months pouring over the same SAT-style practice questions, attempting to improve their scores. As a volunteer tutor at my high school, I work with other students to improve their math skills, with SAT math being some of the most common. It is heartbreaking to watch some students study so much for the SAT, spending all of their lunch periods working through problems, only to perform worse than they had hoped for. I do my best to teach students and prepare them as much as possible, but it saddens me that so much pressure is placed on them, all due to this myth that the SAT is an accurate measure of a student’s entire potential.
Standardized exams are only capable of measuring the small portion of a student’s skills most directly related to the test, and they leave out much of what will impact a student’s potential. To determine a student’s potential, colleges must consider the SAT as just one data point in a myriad of factors. A student’s high school adventure toward college admission should not only be defined by their trek through the SAT jungle but should include all of their other feats along the way.