The SAT’s future switch from paper and pencil to a digital format is keeping with the times. So is the trend in higher education to downplay college admissions tests.
The first trend is largely inconsequential, the other not so much.
By making admissions tests optional, a move accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, highly selective colleges and universities are prioritizing diversity over academics. They are saying that because white, wealthy kids tend to do better on these tests, they have historically had an unfair advantage getting into the nation’s best schools.
Maybe that’s so, but it doesn’t discount what the SAT and its rival ACT test demonstrate: namely, who is best able to do the demanding work that these schools have historically required.
There is such a variance in academic rigor and standards at America’s high schools that you need an objective gauge to measure the realistic capability of their graduates.
Without it, one of two things will happen. Colleges will admit a high number of students who are doomed to failure, or they will water down their instruction to keep that from happening.
Either way it portends poorly for the schools and for their students.
