Is it better to have a standardized test (like the SAT) as a prerequisite for college? Or do you think each school should have its own test for its applicants?
Please state your reasons.
2007-02-15 23:31:08 · 5 answers · asked by Alyssa 1 in Education & Reference ➔ Higher Education (University +)
Standardized tests are a necessary evil. The top schools accept kids from all over the country. There's no way to compare them all with one "standard" except with a standardized test. Every school is different in terms of how hard it is, quality of education, etc.
For practical reasons, having each school make up it's own entrance exam wouldn't work. Too hard to get all the applicants to take it under proper conditions, too much work for the school to develop and then grade it, etc.
2007-02-16 04:41:31 · answer #1 · answered by Linkin 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
All the colleges I have visited (which is more than 300) say that the SAT is just a small part of the admissions. It is a way of confirming that the HS transcript is authentic. They need to do this because there are many high schools which do not keep "rank in class" and many kids are home-schooled. When they submit a transcript to the college, the college has no way to know whether the marks they got are legitimate or not. What is an "A"? In one case I was involved with, a girl had been home schooled and her mother had given her A+ in every paper she had ever done in her life. They were suing a major university to force the university to give her a full scholarship. She refused to take the SATs because she "didn't test well!" What a deal if she had won that case! $160,000 worth of free college because your mom thinks you are smart! hahahahah!
It is definitely not true that the SAT only requires "regurgitation." It has a lot of reading comprehension, and for the math and subject tests it has a lot of complicated word problems which require critical thinking and computation. It isn't regurgitation if you are analyzing soemthing you never saw before! Of course, there is a major writing sample, as well. The facts and vocabulary they ask about are definitely things that give a clue as to whether the student is alert and educated or not.
There is no way individual schools could make up their own tests! That would take many thousands of hours of development, and how would they administer the test to students all over the country. And how would the students be able to take tests for several different schools. And who would score the tests - some schools have 10,000s of applicants. There are way too many problems. The best the schools can do is ask for a couple of simple essays.
2007-02-16 00:22:34 · answer #2 · answered by matt 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well measuring a worth of a person against a standard is not always right, but what colleges want is someone who fits in the standard or more. Of course, these tests don't really tell you that much about the taker except how well they can memorise and regurgitate. Then again, that is all one needs to graduate.
2007-02-15 23:44:50 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
I think standardized tests are less biased as opposed to the universities having their own exam.
Mwahahaha alyssa :p
2007-02-16 18:59:08 · answer #4 · answered by pola d 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They unfairly measure ones intellingence against the "standard" scores
2007-02-15 23:36:30 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋