SATs? More like Standardized Discrimination.

America’s scholastic sorting hat is hijacked by the Dark Forces- Standardized Testing. As a poor reflector and predictor of academic achievement, it instead measures cultural and socioeconomic chasms. Considering Standardized Testing within college admissions is tantamount to assigning Voldemort the power to control the sorting hat.

Godric’s hat has been utilizing these tests to provide colleges with a standardized test of knowledge as a predictor for later and current academic achievement. With any psychometric test, validity, or how closely a test can attribute the results to the tested content or variable, is a crucial aspect in measuring the success of the test. SATs fail in construct validity, internal validity, and external validity. 

Construct validity, or how well the test actually measures what it wants to measure, is evidently poor with the SATs. The SATs are anglo saxon centered tests- with most of the information surrounding typical White American knowledge. As an international student, I was heavily disadvantaged: the test asked for the least amount of coins necessary to add to $3.46. However, this was based on the knowledge of the currency and what coins there were. Despite performing the calculations correctly, the fundamental absence of American cultural knowledge was instead represented rather than my ability to perform mathematics.

 Rather than the depiction of my academic performance, my cultural knowledge was instead what was tested. By including standardized testing in college admissions, it instead reflects the cultural distance an individual is from the White American norm. 

Internal Validity is also threatened in the SATs, where the population’s test results are not reflected by the effect of the test itself but from other confounding variables. Instead, the economic statuses of students often influence test scores. Students who are privileged can afford SAT prep and have more time to prepare for the tests as working may not be necessary for their survival. People who have taken private SAT prep classes scored 60 points higher on average than those who don’t - this financial privilege is what is causing this score and not the intelligence of the individual.