Are SATs Racist?
From the NYT Education blog: "A New Book Argues against the SAT"
When Wake Forest University announced three years ago that it would make the SAT optional for its undergraduate applicants, among those cheering was Joseph Soares, a sociology professor at the university. Mr. Soares has channeled his enthusiasm for Wake Forest’s decision — as well as for similar policies at several hundred other colleges — into a new book, “SAT Wars,” that argues for looking beyond standardized test scores in college admissions. (The book was published last month by Teachers College Press.)
“The SAT and ACT are fundamentally discriminatory,” Mr. Soares said in a phone interview last week.
Through his own essays in the book, as well as those of contributors that he edited, Mr. Soares seeks to build a case against the SAT. He characterizes it as a test that tends to favor white, male, upper income students with the means to prepare for it.
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May '10
Re: Are SATs Racist?
Well, the SATs are discriminatory against less educated students. Is this the discrimination that they decry?
Feb '11
Re: Are SATs Racist?
"[W]ith the means to prepare for it" is a legitimate problem.
Mar '11
Re: Are SATs Racist?
I went to high school for four years (well, 3 ½ years). Was there any other preparation available?
Something tells me Prof. Soares doesn't test particularly well.
Jan '11
Re: Are SATs Racist?
And how does this explain that the % of women is approaching 60% in universities today? Men do better at the test then opt not to go?
Apr '11
Re: Are SATs Racist?
The SAT discriminates between people who are capable of academic achievement and people who are, for whatever reason, less capable.
If you knew someone who was just as smart as a doctor, but had "never had the opportunity" to study medicine, would you want them to operate on you?
Feb '11
Re: Are SATs Racist?
I think people like Soares should be required to fly only on a certain airline...one which will be exempted from the normal FAA standards and will hire its pilots without any requirement for passing either the normal Written Test or the normal Practical Test.
Aug '10
Re: Are SATs Racist?
I would disagree somewhat. Chiefly, the SAT discriminates between those who are good at taking the SAT and those who are not. Unfortunately, that may be the best we can do in terms of measuring academic capability in a quick, standardized fashion.
What makes a person good at the SAT could be raw academic aptitude, but it also could be having prepared for the SAT (anyone who thinks that preparing for these test can't raise your score is nuts), an ability to stay cool under pressure (yes, test-anxiety is real, though better overcome, not pandered to), or simply an ability to not lose patience with what seems like a boring, pointless task (a vital academic and life skill, true, even though it's not what we typically think of as "academic aptitude").
(Full disclosure: My PSAT/SAT scores were somewhere above 1500, yet I consider myself far less academically gifted than several folks I know who scored about 1200 -- and their outstanding achievements in the academic world relative to my merely good ones would bear this out.)
Edited on Nov 10, 2011 at 6:23amAug '10
Re: Are SATs Racist?
Percival
I went to high school for four years (well, 3 ½ years). Was there any other preparation available?
Yes. Tons.
Professional preparation services, like Kaplan or Princeton Review. Oodles of old tests floating around there to practice on your own. Simply growing up in a school-system that gives you lots of practice taking these sorts of tests...
In my case, my parent had, for some reason, given me books of old SAT exams to keep me occupied during long road trips as a preteen. Between that and a Princeton Review booklet, I had learned how not to be so intimidated by the SAT, which is what I, personally, needed to get a good score.
Aug '10
Re: Are SATs Racist?
All that said, I've always encouraged the inner-city kids I've tutored to take their SATs and ACTs.
When you're stuck in one of worst school systems in the country, your grades may not tell colleges much. But if you can manage a non-awful score on a standardized exam, despite your circumstances, that does tell people something, and it could be your ticket to a brighter future.
Re: Are SATs Racist?
I agree with Midget Faded Rattlesnake. I am an excellent taker of standardized tests, and I'm grateful for the opportunities my scores afforded me. But the ability to do well on that test does not correlate with academic achievement nearly so well as the test makers would have you believe. I had many friends with significantly lower scores who applied themselves much more than I did (initially, at least) in school.
If I were an admissions counselor, I'd look for discipline more than any other trait.
Apr '11
Re: Are SATs Racist?
As somebody once said, the battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift, but that's the way to bet. Does anyone really believe that performance on standardized tests says absolutely nothing about the probability of academic success?
Aug '10
Re: Are SATs Racist?
No, and that is neither Molly's nor my argument, as far as I can tell.
When I say, "Chiefly, the SAT discriminates between those who are good at taking the SAT and those who are not. Unfortunately, that may be the best we can do in terms of measuring academic capability in a quick, standardized fashion," I mean exactly what I say.
The SATs are an imperfect proxy. That doesn't make them a useless proxy. As I say, they could be the best standardized proxy that we can get given the constraints we face -- and standardization itself is far from useless.
But it's silly to make a useful but imperfect gauge into anything more than what it is. Honestly, the fact that people tend to do so is probably why there's so much fuss over "discrimination" on the SATs to begin with. If people just acknowledged from the start that tests like these are bound to be imperfect measurements, there'd be less outcry over the fact that these tests are, well... imperfect measurements.
Edited on Nov 10, 2011 at 9:02amRe: Are SATs Racist?
I hate standardized tests. That said, this whole "with the means to prepare for it" tripe is annoying. Anyone who can't afford a Kaplan or Princeton review prep book can borrow one from the library. (And yes, those prep books really do help)
Sure you can take those fancy $500 SAT prep courses. My fiance actually taught one of those for years. But those follow the same curriculum as the review books, so why not just do it on your own?
Apr '11
Re: Are SATs Racist?
Accusing the SATs as racist is nothing new at all. I remember back in the late eighties, when I was taking the test, that there was rumblings that it was discriminatory.
I'd hypothesize that it's not the SAT at all that's the problem. The critics are looking at an effect rather than the cause, and mistaking former for latter. There is more trouble both in our school system and in our impoverished neighborhoods that are aggravated by liberal idealism that creates more problems than it solves.
However, since liberal intentions are good we're supposed to realize their solutions are just fine, and that if one measure of achievement produces results that are askew, well that measure must be biased.
Aug '10
Re: Are SATs Racist?
C. U. Douglas:
I'd hypothesize that it's not the SAT at all that's the problem. The critics are looking at an effect rather than the cause, and mistaking former for latter.
Agreed.
If you're raised in a broken home or a lousy school district, it's not a huge surprise when your academic skills -- including your ability to take standardized tests -- go undeveloped. And nobody should be surprised when standardized test scores reflect this.
The good news is, of course, that America is still the land of second chances, and plenty of people who grew up in less-than-auspicious circumstances can and do succeed, eventually, with enough hard work.
The bad news is that they've got so much make up for, stuff that many children raised in better homes and schools can just take for granted. And overcoming those deficits isn't made any easier by being taught that the deck is gonna be stacked against you no matter what you do, and the best reaction is to cultivate a grievance mentality.
Aug '10
Re: Are SATs Racist?
Diane Ellis, Ed.: I hate standardized tests. That said, this whole "with the means to prepare for it" tripe is annoying. Anyone who can't afford a Kaplan or Princeton review prep book can borrow one from the library...
Sure you can take those fancy $500 SAT prep courses. My fiance actually taught one of those for years. But those follow the same curriculum as the review books, so why not just do it on your own?
Yep, that's what I recommend, too (and what I did for myself).
You'd be surprised, though, at the blank looks I've gotten from teens in, ahem, certain school districts when I tell 'em that review material for standardized tests does in fact exist (much less that it's affordable).
Amazing the number of parents who haven't heard of it, and schoolteachers who still apparently tell their students that these sorts of tests can't be studied for.
Teens are at the age when they should show initiative and investigate things for themselves. But I can't entirely blame them for not knowing about the means to prepare when no adult in their lives hints at its existence.
Mar '11
Re: Are SATs Racist?
I was privileged to attend a very wealthy, elite private school (despite not being wealthy or elite myself), and can attest that rich students can certainly leverage their resources to obtain better scores. The expensive courses are more helpful than the prep books for the simple reason that lazy kids learn better when they don't have to read. Having money also lets kids take the test multiple times until they get good at it.
What this complaint misses, though, is the simple fact of life that wealthy students will always have many advantages in getting into college, with or without SATs. One of the incentives to becoming wealthy is the possibility of giving your own kids a leg up on life, and no attempt to make education more "fair" can change that. Trying to wish away rich children's privileges is a fool's errand.
Edited on Nov 10, 2011 at 12:54pmDec '10
Re: Are SATs Racist?
I'd take it more as a condemnation of our public school systems than of the test.
May '10
Re: Are SATs Racist?
Is there any nontrivial task that doesn't "favor [people] with the means to prepare for it"?
Standardized test scores provide the closest thing we can probably devise to a scientific assessment of aptitude. But we don't use them as the sole discriminator, so to speak, in college admissions. That's why good colleges combine grades, honors, activities, life circumstances, and essays. All of these are subjective except a standardized test score and to some extent, high school grades.
Mar '11
Re: Are SATs Racist?
In fact, if I remember correctly, the College Board lost a lawsuit at some point in the eighties, and was required to include a "minority-focused" reading passage in the comprehension section.