Are College Entrance Exams Fair and Effective?

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A pervasive issue in education today is the college entrance exams. There are several college exams used in the United States and around the world. These include the SAT, the ACT and many other various versions of those tests. These tests are an unfair and ineffective measure to determine a student’s acceptance into college. These tests to do not measure a student’s ability to master a subject rather they measure aptitude which is ineffective. Not only do students need to achieve academically, but they are also advised to have extracurricular activities outside of the classroom. Race and gender also play a huge role in acceptance letters to universities forcing the acceptances to be unfair.

College entrance exams do not identify whether a student has mastered a subject, rather they show a student’s inborn abilities. In Seoul, South Korea students take a test like the SAT’s. The Koreans go to different lengths to study and prepare for these tests. Korean students, “will take the nine-hour test, which consists mostly of multiple-choice questions” (Park, 2008) .To some students a nine hour test might be a little too outrageous. By the fourth hour mark students are most likely to be getting tired and agitated and they are not even at the half way mark yet. In London, England they take what is called the Key Stage 2 test which is similar to the SAT. These tests are for students who are in their last year of primary school. “the results may look fairly innocuous… Yet they are anything but, because both the data itself, and the way it is used, have become the focus of an increasingly bitter argument.” (Guardian, 2007) These children have so much ahead of them they should not be thinking of college at this point; they still need to lear...

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...n.co.uk/education/2007/dec/06/schools.primaryeducation

Zuman, J. P. (1988, April). The effectiveness o£ special preparation for the SAT: An evaluation of a commercial coaching school. . Retrieved from(http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED294900&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED294900)

Wise, T. W. (2002, August 12).Failing the test of fairness: Institutional racism and the SAT. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/story/13826/?page=1

Finkel, R. F. (2011, September 26).Sat remains for Penn applicants despite potential unfairness. Retrieved from http://thedp.com/index.php/article/2011/09/sat_remains_for_penn_applicants_despite_potential_unfairness

Weiss, K. W. (2001, February 18).UC faculty chief backs dropping sat as unfair. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2001/feb/18/local/me-27050

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