The Story behind the SAT

The SAT tests have been a major deciding factor when it comes to college admissions for high school students every year. It is also being realized that the SAT is an important parameter to determine students’ IQ and learning abilities to prepare them for college education. Children with a good SAT score usually perform well in college and beyond.

Considering the above, a student’s next question is ‘How do I identify the right SAT tutoring near me?’ The truth is that SAT tutoring can be a costly affair. Students and parents spend exorbitant amounts of money and time on classes and expensive SAT tutors for their definite success. But with the advent of online SAT tutoring services,  it has taken a load off from the shoulders of parents who can rely on such SAT online courses with a 30 day guaranteed refund just in case. To start with, a SAT practice test is used to diagnose a student’s SAT taking skills, based on which the  online SAT prep is individualized for the student.

 This concept of a generalized assessment and give all kids an equal opportunity to study further has been around for a while, since the 1920s. It all started with this guy named Carl Campbell Brigham, who was a Princeton University professor. He used to assist Army Mental Tests to recruit soldiers into jobs which tested a person’s innate mental capacity (IQ). The problem was that these ‘Army tests’ were extremely biased and slanted towards just a specific type of domain, with knowledge pertaining to brand names, cuts of beef and baseball trivia. This sparked the curiosity of Brigham to further investigate the use of such tests, and he decided to come up with the idea to make undergraduate testing mandatory for all types of people. Back then, college education was considered a privilege only for the wealthy and upper-class. Only 1 out of 25 high school students could receive a college education.

On the other hand, college presidents from 12 of the most elite universities (Cornell, Columbia, NYU and others) formed the College Entrance Examination Board (aka the College Board).They decided to develop a standardized admissions exam which was first held in 1901, known as the “College Boards”.  This test consisted of essay questions based on Latin, Greek and Physics and took 5 days to complete. Although a certain fee was to be paid for all those who wanted to take up the assessment.

The College Board noticed the way these Army Mental tests were conducted for a large number of soldiers, and decided to rethink their approach towards testing university applicants. That’s when Brigham’s idea was taken up by the College Board to make undergraduate testing mandatory, and assigned him to invent a universal entry exam. This gave birth to the Scholastic Aptitude Test or the SAT.

The first SAT test was taken up in 1926 as an experiment by only a few thousand high school students. Since most of the universities still stuck to their idea of having their own version of assessment tests for high school applicants, it made the SAT test redundant. Until 1942 during World War II, the war caused all pre-existing College Board admissions to be abolished, making the SAT test as the only option to fall back on for millions of applicants. By 1961, the SAT test was given by over 800,000 students each year.

The original SAT had 9 domains - 7 based on verbal skills and 2 based on math. Some of the domains entitled were – Number Series, Antonyms, Artificial Language, Logical Inference and Paragraph Reading. In the coming decades, these domains were eliminated and reinstated according to the changing educational system.

The SAT test was viewed by the College Board as a test of pure intelligence regardless of the quality of high school education received by the student. It opposed the idea of rote memorization and knowledge only possessed by the wealthy class. Unfortunately, some university boards which tried to deny admission to minorities believed that intelligence was only possessed by higher races. Based on this theory, they adopted the SAT tests as a part of their admission process. This perceived image of the SATs did cause a stir amongst people, forcing the College Board to change its content, administration and increase accessibility, making it even more popular amongst the middle-class and minorities in the coming years. Those were the times when an Online SAT prep Course was unimaginable!

The SAT test has always faced cultural criticism to this day, which the College Board has attempted to counter since its inception. Major revisions in the process of how the SAT test is conducted took place in 1994 and 2005, where reading passages were improved to resemble what is taught in high schools and colleges. Even the elimination of the Antonyms section was made along with availability of calculators for the first time, and the essay section was made optional. The SAT also faced competition from the ACT test for the first time in 1959, pressurizing the College Board to make the SAT test familiar to the rest of the world through international advertisements.

Thus, the invention of the SAT test did bring about a certain revolution in college admissions, giving kids from all sections of society an opportunity to pursue a college education leading to better lives. But there are still some factors which need to be considered in order to make the SAT a better experience for every applicant; and is constantly updated, in order to keep up with the changing education system and changing world with every generation.