The SAT is under siege. The charges of cultural bias, irrelevance, and overemphasis the College Board’s intimidating test is bombarded with may be music to your ears, but consider more closely these attacks, steady since the test was first required by a major college, the University of California, in 1967, and gaining momentum since UC’s president Richard Atkinson proposed last February that one of the world’s most influential college systems stop requiring it. The SAT needs defense; its criticisms are not only wrong but a threat to justice.

A study meant to prove that blacks and Hispanics tend to score lower on the SAT than whites and Asians because they are blacks and Hispanics--not because they are poorer--showed that a group of blacks scored 120 points lower than a group of whites of the same income level, supposedly indicating that blacks have a different culture than the white makers of the test, causing their lower scores. But can a math question even be culturally biased? Not, at least, the kinds asked on the SAT--and blacks score higher on verbal than math sections of the test. The lower scores of blacks may be explained by another study, involving two groups of racially mixed students, one told they were about to take an intelligence test, another that they were about to take a simple problem solving exercise. Both took the same test, but the blacks of the group taking “the intelligence test” scored far lower than the blacks of the other group, while the whites of each group scored about equally. Even if every black kid has heard that blacks do not score as well as whites on intelligence tests, the thought that confidence can have a significant effect on SAT scores may seem ridiculous. It is not: I took the PSATs 3 days after the SATs and, feeling no pressure, scored 90 points better.

Although there may be correlation between test scores and economic status, and although blacks and Hispanics do tend to have lower incomes and attend poorer schools, the SAT is not biased: a lack of math and verbal skills is a lack of math and verbal skills, whosever fault that is. A college is not obliged to make up for a kid’s economic disadvantages. Even the opportunity for wealthier kids to take prep classes is not unfair. Students can not elevate their scores with tricks learned in these classes: they must actually improve their math and verbal skills. Colleges should reward acceptance according to ability, not need. The value of the SAT is highlighting talent regardless of need, whether that of a St. Pauls valedictorian or Chinatown immigrant.

Further complaints have long accompanied the racial argument. Atkinson worries about the overemphasis of a test he considers an irrelevant distraction from high school curricula and which proposes to gauge innate ability. Critics say that the SAT, far from indicating college aptitude, measures nothing more than a student’s ability to take an SAT. But how can an individual’s vocabulary, analogical ability, reading comprehension, ability to infer, and math skills be largely innate or insignificant? To the extent that teachers and students do prepare for the SAT, students benefit by enhancing their math and verbal skills. To the extent that individuals feel their worth is measured by their (or their child’s or student’s) SAT scores, the test is overemphasized, but that is the fault and problem of individual high school students, parents, and teachers--not of the College Board.

Colleges should not drop their SAT requirements for the wrong reason: because it is a controversial test. They should do it if it is not a good indicator of what they look for in a student. High SAT scores can reveal kids with highly developed thinking abilities. Considering scores tends to improve prediction of a student’s success at a college, measured by GPA, by 10%. Even low SAT scores, combined with high grades or achievement test scores, can be helpful in accepting students, revealing determination in the absence of brilliance.

The ability measured by the SAT depends on countless internal and external factors, but above all--you. Your score is most dependent on how you have nurtured your mind for the last 16, 17, or 18 years. Without the SAT or similar test, your admission to colleges would depend more on your teachers, your race, and the extent to which you joined clubs, served your community, and ingratiated yourself with potential recommendation writers than on your intellect.

The SAT is under siege because it reveals that some individuals are more able than others. Superiority can be very unpopular in our egalitarian society. The SAT is a valiant beacon of justice, providing the opportunity for able kids to be discovered and rewarded.

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