By Chris Cummins
Staff Writer

The SAT is currently offered in dozens countries around the globe, in thousands of testing centers in those same countries, and on average, to over two million students. Most college admissions officers rank it among the most important factors in determing admittance, with some even going so far as to label it the most important factor, bar none. Indeed, on most collegiate websites, the admissions portion of the site is almost solely a place where the median SAT scores of incoming freshmen, no matter how good or bad, are posted prominently. A rapidly burgeoning billion dollar industry has sprouted up around the test, with prep courses and guides offered ad nauseum, luring thousands of students willing to pay with promises of higher test scores, and admittance at elite schools. Obviously, the test carries some importance. This author’s question, however, is not of it’s importance in the admission process, nor of it’s peripheral effects on the world of business, but of the test’s ability to gauge academic talent.

Proponents of the test would argue that it provides the best estimation of academic talent available today, and is the only feasible way to test students on a wide range of academic disciplines within a short time. However, others criticise it for emphasizing a less creative approach to academics, requiring only one writing section, and filling the duration of the test with multiple choice questions. Other critics contend that the test is inherently biased, pointing out the consistently inferior scores of black and Hispanic students when compared to white and Asian students. Despite these criticisms, the SAT seems to be cementing it’s position as the standarized test of choice among the majority of the American collegiate system, with over 1.5 million students taking the SAT in 2009, with no apparent sign of slowing down. Merits of the SAT aside, it looks as if upperclassan will be dreading the SAT for a long time to come, for good or ill.