Wednesday, February 18, 1998
Reading, not riches, the key to going to college
SATS: Emphasis on SATs as root of equity problem is
misguided
Hello again, everyone! Y’all enjoying those exciting midterms?
Well, if calculus integrals and Spanish subjunctive verb tenses are
flooding your brain, and you’re searching for some mental Drano,
look no further.
This doesn’t relate to whatever you’re studying, I promise you.
Recently, one of my colleagues voiced the opinion that my previous
column on Midnight Yell was printed at the wrong time, coming far
too early in the quarter to be relevant. Well, sir, I must protest.
You see, that was such a crucial issue in contemporary society. It
needed to be printed right away. I mean, really, I don’t think I
could live with myself if I had let the mindless oppression of the
yellers continue for even another day. The column was not early,
because the voice of the people must always be heard, no matter
what the date is … or something like that. OK, OK, I don’t have a
compelling reason as to why there was a finals columns in the
fourth week of school, but then again, I don’t call the shots
around here.
But enough of this quibbling. I would like to talk about another
issue dear to my heart, one a tad more serious than yelling. I want
to discuss the SAT. No, that’s not a capitalization of Saturday,
it’s that test that almost all of us have taken at some time in our
academic lives. Remember those cramped little rooms? Remember those
chewed-up pencils they provided? Remember those stupid analogies?
Jeez, I hope so. Otherwise this column isn’t going to make too much
sense.
Though the test has been given for many years, it’s still a
controversial issue when it comes to college admissions. Opponents
of the test claim that it is culturally biased and discriminates
against Latinos and African Americans. Others also claim that the
test doesn’t represent a student’s true abilities, and that too
much weight is placed on scores when it comes to admitting new
students.
Time magazine published an article on the subject last November
that brought up some interesting points. It showed students who
fared poorly at the SAT and attended schools that did not require
it as part of their admissions criteria. These students were able
to do fairly well once at college. The article portrayed them as
examples of why the SAT isn’t the best indicator of a student’s
potential.
This is a sticky situation, no doubt. It would be nice if there
were a "nice-guy admittance test," where good people got into
college – the people who have the desire to learn and help their
communities, but might not have the grades or scores.
Unfortunately, there is no test, so there must be some other way of
admitting people to college. That leaves us with grades; tests,
such as the SAT and ACT; or "other." "Other" is the odd category
used by some universities to try to gauge who the students are
beyond their scores, and the category that SAT opponents claim is
most important. Some schools want to know how the student has been
active in his or her community. Others want to know what students
do in their spare time, and still others ask odd questions which
seem to have nothing to do with anything. Last year’s application
for Northwestern University asked applicants to write the menu for
their ideal dinner, recommend a good book and list their favorite
words. I have no clue what the university gets from this
unconventional application, but it must serve its purpose somehow.
It seems to me that it’s probably just to entertain the admissions
staff, weary after reading long, stupid essays for hours at a
time.
Those "other" things are important, don’t get me wrong. The
problem with them is their subjectivity. Students list thousands of
different organizations which they belong to and scores of ways
they have served their communities. Universities can’t evaluate
each bit of community service and then use it to admit students.
Obviously, some service is better than none, but they can’t be
expected to fairly assess what kind of service is more valuable for
admissions purposes.
Suppose you have two candidates, equal in all categories except
for service. Candidate A has 100 hours of volunteer service, filing
papers at a local hospital; Candidate B took care of a neighbor’s
children for free for 50 hours, allowing her to get to work on time
and feed her family. They both performed noble acts which benefited
others, but it isn’t really fair to say that one is better than the
other. This is far too broad a category to use as a primary source
of admissions.
That leaves the tests and grades. The main argument is against
the tests, so I’ll focus on them. Where do I stand on this? Well,
that’s a question I ask myself frequently. On one hand, my SAT
scores helped me get into UCLA, so for that reason, I like the
test. On the other hand, without affirmative action to help level
the playing field, I understand where the critics are coming from.
This isn’t a cut-and-dry matter, any way you look at it.
When I listen to the argument that the test is geared toward
affluent students, something doesn’t quite add up, however.
Supposedly, students who come from more wealthy backgrounds are
guaranteed better grades because they are given extra help by
professional tutors. My family is not swimming in money, but my
parents were concerned with my education. They never paid for
classes to instruct me on how to score higher on the tests, but
they did make sure I knew the importance of doing well. At the
time, I dismissed this as some bizarre conspiracy between my
parents to ruin my social life and generally annoy me. Once I
finished the test, I saw that maybe ol’ mom and dad did know a
thing or two.
Those pointing fingers also single out the fact that
predominantly minority high schools do not perform as well on the
test as majority schools, because of the lack of funds and parent
booster money to support students. Speaking as a graduate of a high
school where whites only made up 10 percent of the student body, I
can say that this is not true either. Sure, the rich guys across
town may have had pretty campuses, nice football uniforms and
parking lots filled with BMWs, but that doesn’t mean my school
didn’t offer a lot of programs for interested students.
From ninth grade on, we were pulled from class and inserted into
PSAT and SAT prep classes, with our principal haranguing us about
how important it was to do well on the test. Looking around the
room, I didn’t see a bunch of wealthy white people, I saw people
from all backgrounds. There were far more "underrepresented
minorities" than there were any other group.
I never found those sessions to be particularly helpful, but I’m
sure they were useful to some of the people there. What was
important to me was something quite different, something that
anyone can use. If you’re using this paper for something other than
something to sit on, then you have learned it, too. Wow, I feel
like Mr. Rogers, saying this. But hey, ol’ Fred seemed to know a
thing or two about life, so I guess I’ll just roll with it.
The thing that did make a difference for me was something
available to every man, woman, child and whatever other category
you want to include in there: reading. No prep classes, no special
schooling, no trips to Europe to study medieval history; it was
books that made a difference. It’s not like I had some better books
just because of my race; they were found in the public library. You
don’t even have to be reading Shakespeare at age five to learn how
to read well. I know I wasn’t. I must have read every Hardy Boys
mystery ever written, some several times, and I’d say (using one of
those famed SAT analogies) that Frank and Joe are to good
literature as chicken-fried steak is to fine cuisine.
What started at home as a good rainy-day pastime was cultivated
in school. The books I read in school were not just "dead white
guy" authors, they were written by men and women from all over the
globe. We read South American short stories, New England poetry,
medieval epics and slave history. I didn’t like reading many of
them at the time, but now I see that’s what helped me get to
college, not some self-impressed lecturer who droned on and on
about analogies and critical reading.
If students want to improve their scores on any test, not just
the SATs, they need only make a trip to their local library. You
will be able to find what you need in the stacks there, not in an
expensive class or flash-card game. Libraries don’t check at the
door for your race, and you’ve already paid for them with your
hard-earned dollars in the form of taxes.
The SATs don’t have questions about culture, they have questions
about common sense. There’s nothing on there about which year of
Dom Perignon goes best with swordfish, or who originally played the
Phantom of the Opera. I have no idea what the answer to either is,
and I didn’t have to know them for the test. My scores turned out
OK not because of something I’d learned from my "culture," but from
things I’d read in books.
For those concerned with minority admissions now that
Proposition 209 is in effect, I sympathize with you completely. I
wish that there could be a more equitable solution for admitting
minorities to college, one that would attempt to make up for the
discrimination and inequality in society. I agree that things are
not as fair as they should be and can’t offer an easy solution, but
I don’t think that the SAT is the problem.