From another perspective

Georgia College & State University established a SAT requirement for future enrollment classes and will continue to raise this requirement until 2005, capping at an admittance score of 1,000.

I know everyone has an opinion on the value of standardized testing, but let me tell you my side.

I took the SAT three times during high school. The highest cumulative grade I received was a whopping 960. This score does not reflect my graduating GPA of a 4.0 from a noted East Cobb high school or the fact that I had also gone through on an honors/advanced placement track. If I had applied here five years later in 2005, I would have been denied, not because I wasn’t qualified, but because my SAT is 40 points short of the cut-off.

Now, I ask you, is it fair that a person, who worked hard her entire four years to achieve a 4.0, is denied application to a prestigious institution based on one test score?

I think not. I know this is only my case; however, I know of several students who would fall into the same category. Most of these students still earn a GPA above 3.5 at GC&SU.

On the other hand, a student could have the skill of testing well, earn a high score on the SAT, have a low GPA and be accepted into a public liberal arts university that he or she is not prepared to handle. Therefore, this student receives a privilege unwarranted for the work he or she accomplished for the past 12 years, and another student, who is clearly qualified, is denied. Is that fair?

I am not saying that raising the SAT requirement is not one way to raise enrollment standards. I do feel that GC&SU needs to consider the students who are unable to test well and will be denied the right to enroll at this university. The GPA, in some situations, recognizes the student’s potential better than one test. GC&SU should look at their present students’ GPA in correlation to their entry SAT scoring to realize a student’s performance versus testing potential before changing the enrollment requirements. Then, a fair solution for the exceptions like myself can be found. For example, a certain formula involving the SAT score and the GPA is used when admitting students for graduate programs.

I would appreciate an explanation as to how raising just the SAT requirements, without regarding the GPA, increases our enrollment standards. Basing student acceptance on one test takes away the importance of their work in school prior to college. One could almost skip the entire process, get a GED, score well on the SAT and enroll in the same category as another that dedicated their time to making a well-deserved GPA. GPAs are just as important as the standardized test and should be recognized in that way. By raising the SAT requirements, GC&SU is disregarding their importance.

Please email your explanations to colonnade@mail.gcsu.edu.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 4 2002. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry