What's the SAT (or ACT) Good For, Anyway?

This time last year, many of my SAT students were gearing up to take the exam on March 14, 2020.  As we now know, that never happened.  The string of cancellations that followed forced most U.S. colleges to adopt “test-optional” admissions policies.  Many parents and students looked forward to the day when colleges would ban standardized tests from the application process forever.  Nevertheless, the number one question parents still ask me is, “Should my child take the SAT or the ACT?”

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What accounts for the persistence of these exams?  Do parents want to inflict a rite of passage that they endured 30 years ago onto their kids?  I don’t think so.  As an online ACT tutor and SAT tutor, I find that the math questions sometimes reveal huge gaps between a student’s “A” grades and how much they actually know.  The families I work with believe that learning mathematics basics while preparing for the exams is essential to later success.  They also understand that while these tests are flawed, good test scores can help to make up for the weaker elements of a child’s overall application.  

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As an online SAT tutor and online ACT tutor, I see the stress that these exams engender for many students.  Nevertheless, I’m not sure that alone is a reason to abolish them.  Better, perhaps, to teach students how to handle stressful situations.  Moreover, the quality of high school instruction ranges widely within this nation.  It even varies, as I’ve seen firsthand as an online ACT tutor and online SAT tutor, within the nation’s wealthiest county.  This variability suggests that using high school grades as the sole arbiter of student achievement can also yield misleading results.

For now, the SAT and ACT are here to stay.  Let’s use these perennials not as some meaningless high school ritual to be endured.  Let's use them as opportunities to make sure our kids understand the rudiments of what they test.  Mastering the structures of the English language and high school mathematics, along with critically understanding what one reads, are fundamental not only to college success, but to most professional endeavors.