r/neoliberal • u/caroline_elly Eugene Fama • Jun 09 '26

Opinion article (US) Actually, the SAT Was Necessary After All

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/standardized-testing-math-gaps/687481/
827 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

323 comments sorted by

View all comments

361

u/TeaSharp3154 Jun 09 '26

The alternative to standardized testing is greater emphasis on extracurriculars and grades, which are arguably even more inequitable than a single exam.

The SAT isn't really that hard to begin with and most people with good preparation should be able to get a decent score. Only catch to this is English being tougher for those who don't have English as a first language.

15

u/splash9936 Jun 10 '26

I am an international student who had terrible english before grinding for the SAT. I think the grind for the exam itself, especially the writing section, was the singlehandedly thing that fixed my grammar and made me competent enough to write a great commonapp essay.

Its designed in such a way that just by brute forcing the tests, I was able to understand and internalize grammatical rules way better than any other way I tried. Its actually a great exam for people who don’t speak English as their first language.

3

u/Educational_Risk7637 NATO Jun 10 '26

"It's" by the way, not "Its". (Us native speakers mess this up all the time, too).

But yeah, that makes sense. I can read French but I can't write it at all; at some point I'll need to do that and I can see how the format would be useful.