As our hardworking students prepare for college, many of our high school students will be taking the SAT college admissions test. The SAT, administered by the College Board, has been an annual ritual for almost 100 years. However, the SAT is in trouble.
In recent years, the ACT, a competing college admissions test, has increased in popularity. In addition, a large and increasing list of colleges have changed their rules on college admissions exams.
Currently, there are over 850 schools that have waived the tests entirely or allow alternatives, such as AP exams. These recent developments have the College Board terrified. After decades of milking test prep and test exam fees from hundreds of thousands of students, they are at a crossroads. The College Board is desperate to keep the gravy train going.
The College Board, in a pathetic attempt to stay relevant, recently announced it will be assigning an “Adversity Score” to all SAT test-takers. This score, which will be kept secret from the student, will be a reflection of the neighborhood and school of the test-taker. The goal is to identify students who have supposedly achieved more than their environment would normally allow.
The score has nothing to do with individual student circumstances. It is based solely on generalized statistics about the student’s neighborhood – things like median income, percentage of single-parent families, average education level of the area, etc. In other words, given Long Island’s commitment to education and quality of life, almost every Long Island student will be assigned an adversity score of zero or near-zero.
To be clear, the College Board will send along each of our students’ scores along with the message that whatever score the child has achieved, it is the product of a pampered, spoiled, student who faced little or no “adversity”.
This is an insult to every resident of our beautiful and diverse suburban landscape. The College Board knows nothing about our students or their circumstances. How dare The SAT judge us based on our zip code.
It is time to tell the College Board to abandon this disrespectful idea immediately. All Long Island school districts should immediately stop offering the SAT and only offer the ACT. We should make every parent aware of this misguided new Adversity Score and how our children will be negatively affected. We should not participate in a system that diminishes our success and disparages our hardworking students.
Neal Picker
Great Neck
