College Admissions: A Cost Within Itself
The College Board. Love it or hate it, is an organization that found a way to completely take over the college entrance process. The infamous SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) is a college entrance requirement for schools across the United States that has sparked a debate on whether there is a direct correlation between spending more money and the “dream school” acceptance rate.
A graphic illustrating the hourly wages paid to tutors (redwoodbark.org).
Unlike most tests taken during high school classes, the SAT is a test designed to measure skills rather than knowledge. This exposes the industry to a secondary market where tutors and test-prep guides teach students the methodology behind performing well on these exams. These services wildly vary in price ranging from group sessions costing $50 and programs that “guarantee” test scores such as the Princeton Review 1400+ program that cost over $1,500. The question then becomes, should monetary incentives exist in a process such as college admissions?
An advertisement for test tutoring from Test Genie (www.testprepgenie).
Cost should be separated from the college admissions process because it corrupts the procedure by providing the option to essentially “pay” to get into college. Within this solution, standardized tests are removed and admissions become more experience-based rather than solely based on test scores. Here the secondary market for tutoring and test-prep will become obsolete as the SAT will no longer be considered.
This type of shift is already prevalent as most colleges removed or made optional testing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic inadvertently sparked a movement away from test-centric admissions and allowed universities to highlight other aspects for applicants. By having nearly two-thirds of public universities declare test optional, it illustrates how fickle test scores really are on an application, and how their absence might instill a change for the better.
The one valuable aspect that the SAT presented universities was a benchmark that was used to filter through applications. For institutions with low acceptance rates that receive tens of thousands of applications, a nearly perfect SAT score is merely a check-in-the-box. If standardized tests are abolished, what method should be utilized to separate standout applications from mediocre ones? AP and IB testing could be a potential answer, but not all schools have access to these programs, and some offer more classes than others. Evaluating individuals solely on their extracurriculars and experiences is another option, but an overreliance on this category could potentially bring on response bias if applicants know that their fraudulent applications could trick readers.
Is there a solution that levels the playing field but does not delegitimize the process? What will fill the void that could exist with no standardized admissions exams? Is there a future where costs are eliminated from the college admissions process?
Tutoring with standardized tests is an interesting topic because while I think that being able to afford expensive review sessions creates an inequitable divide in education, there are free tutoring services for all students who have internet access. If you are really dedicated to scoring high, places like Khan Academy offer lessons in the different sections with feedback and I think about 10 different SAT sample exams. There are also a ton of free resources on Youtube that certainly don’t compare to some of the paid tutoring services but do provide helpful information.
Overall, I think that paying for private tutoring for a standardized test is just unfair to those who are unable to afford it, and I think that the college board either needs to try and limit these paid services or get rid of the exams all together!
These exams are so stressful for students, and it can also be a hefty cost for students to have to pay. With the cost, some students may have to rely on one sitting to use to apply to college whereas other students are able to retake the exam.
Hi Ryan! I think this is a really interesting post with a couple pieces to address. First, I agree that the amount of money some people spend on standardized testing tutoring is ridiculous. With the slow deconstruction of the legitimacy of standardized testing in the college admissions process, it is so important to think about other factors that can be used to evaluate admissions. Because ultimately, I think that an admission process should be how well the student would fit with the school and how well the school will fit with the student. There are other ways to evaluate this from essays to interviews to grades to recommendations that can be more useful than scores of any kind. I agree that extracurriculars should be considered but not emphasized too much. Ultimately, this is a really thought provoking post
This is an incredibly difficult topic and one that’s constantly in debate. From one perspective of the SATs I ended up getting a slightly higher than average but not super high SAT score. This put me at a range where the majority of the colleges I applied to (I tried to vary my application pool), I was more middle of the road as far as typical SAT applications go. For me, seeing that SATs were no longer weighted nearly as much was a sigh of relief, as I didn’t have to worry nearly as much about this anymore. But I do sometimes wonder if in a roundabout way, this might have hurt me. Some schools where my SAT score was higher than average still waitlisted me, which made me question if taking away SAT scores also put to light some of the deficiencies in other parts of my application that the admissions normally wouldn’t pay as much attention to. No one can say as they obviously didn’t give me a concrete reason for why I wasn’t admitted right away. Despite this, I still think it helped me more overall, and isn’t a bad idea to remove SAT scores. But then, that brings up the question of what to do instead? GPA isn’t a good enough qualifier on its own. AP tests do not work whatsoever considering that just separates kids based on the school they attended. I, for one, didn’t even have the means or opportunity to take several AP tests in my high school. AP US History wasn’t even recognized as a class at my school until the year after I took the honors version. And, not to mention, these AP tests also cost a bucket load of change–inevitably going back to the same issue of having money giving one an advantage. To tell the truth, I’m not sure if money can ever be removed from the college application process. I for one did not get any tutoring whatsoever on the AP tests or SATs. I honestly don’t know if it’s absolutely necessary, but it does place kids at an advantage I never had. I’m curious to see what happens to the SATs once we’ve moved past the Covid era. I wouldn’t be surprised if it stays just because of the sole fact that we don’t know what to replace it with. Good post!