College Counselors Criticize Length of SAT
Posted on December 18th, 2005
From The New York Times:College counselors at about 200 high schools nationwide, and a few college admissions officers, have joined to ask the college board to give students the option of taking the three parts of the SAT separately, instead of requiring that they take the whole test in one sitting.
The SAT, the leading college admissions test, expanded to 3 hours 45 minutes earlier this year with the addition of a writing test to the old three-hour test of math and reading.
Mr. MacGowan and several other college counselors posted an open letter addressed to Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board, and the response from others who work with high school students was immediate and overwhelming.
"In less than 24 hours, there were all these e-mails, not just saying 'Add my name' but saying this is a great idea, this is something they, too, feel strongly about," Mr. MacGowan said.
The open letter makes several arguments in favor of the change. The counselors point out that until the SAT was revamped, writing was tested in a separate, one-hour test.
They said scores from separate sections might be more reliable measures of academic skills. "We contend that the separated tests would be better indicators of students' abilities in each area," they wrote, "as scores would not be confounded by factors such as fatigue and hunger."
The counselors also argued that the current policy unfairly burdened students with unneeded costs and testing. "We believe that it is important that students not have to pay for and take more tests than necessary," they said.
Controversy is already raging over this issue.
Some argue that the SAT should re re-designed, as it is an unfair assessment of a student's ability, especially at so long a length, and may hurt a good student's chances of getting into college.
Others feel that if a student cannot handle the amount of concentration required for this longer test, they would likely not be able to handle the stress of college courses.
It will be interesting to see if any changes are made.
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