Probably a little more than half of my friends did not submit their scores. This is anecdotal, but I see no difference at all in terms of academic ability.

As for affirmative action -- I don't know. I'm a peer writing tutor, so I work with a lot of different students, and obviously, since it is a liberal arts colleges, there's a fair amount of writing involved in almost every discipline. I have consistently seen (again, this is just anecdotal) that those students that are likely recipients of affirmative action based on race often have maybe 5th-6th grade writing levels, and are unprepared for the rigor of college writing. I don't know that there is an easy solution to this, since I am probably a beneficiary of affirmative action as well and it's worked out well for me.

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When I did very well on the PSATs, my mailbox was suddenly flooded with application info from everywhere. My standardized test scores definitely opened realms of possibility, and made me realize I had some kind of value that wasn't yet realized.

Are they perfectly fair? Nope.

One measure of a very particular type of performance only.

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The problem with all of the pressure to succeed at standardized tests (ACT, SAT, AP, etc) is that it drives students to be entirely focused in solving the problem, instead of the Socratic style discussions that actually take place in college. So many of my classmates were so focused on getting all of the answers right, instead of taking risks and looking at the big picture that whenever a professor asked us "well, what do you think?", the entire classroom would be silent.

College is a differnt animal. Just because you got straight A's/high test scores doesn't mean that you'll get them in college. I had students petition the VP in charge of Academic Affairs because they were mad a professors gave them "bs" on papers instead of "As"

Can't we just have college admissions based on wacky Cambridge style interviews?

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I'm in mostly honors and APs, I'm a journalism nerd, bookish and always up for discussions and I genuinely enjoy learning. My GPA is pretty high. But when it comes to SAT and ACT, lord help me. The first time I took the SAT I did not do too well, but I had a tutor, and so I took it another time and raised it over 100 points. It still just doesn't feel good enough so I signed up to take it again in October. Same with ACT. I've taken it once and I got a 25, not too bad, but I need to bump it up a few points for the state schools.

And I hate to put pressure like this on myself, but its just, I don't know, I feel like it has to be done. I'm in Florida, and the two main state schools - University of Florida and Florida State University, get so many applications that they really only can look at numbers. And there are some kids that just have a knack for testing. And it's incredibly stressful. I just want to be done with it. But I have to take ACT and SAT again and bump up my score just a little bit. It's the most stressful and annoying and competitive thing in the world and I cannot wait to be done with it.

My school is also a private, really hard, college preparatory school and there are kids there that are more competitive than you can imagine. And these kids kill themselves trying to get the best scores on SATs. I hate it. I cannot wait to be a second semester high school senior and know where I'm going to college.

This turned into a whole rant. Sorry :/

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There is one benefit to the SAT- it can point out students who are particularly strong from inner city and rural areas. It was part of what it was designed for.

I think the US college admissions process is really insane between the SATs, GPAs, extracurriculars, and all of the obsessing. But I think the US probably does a better job with diverse students than some other countries. Students in the UK pretty much know where they can get in based on their predicted A levels, which gets rid of some pressure, but they don't really control for the differences in exposure and opportunity.

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How ridiculous is that? It used to stand for things. Now it's really just the SAT Reasoning Test. That's it.

I'll admit to being sort of part of the problem- I work for one of those giant test prep companies teaching SAT classes as of this summer. It pays better than any other job I can get at this point in my life while I'm a full time student. And yes, the kids who can afford the $1000 30hr prep course we offer will definitely do better than the kids who can't afford it. I haven't quite worked out if I'm okay with working for the man like that.

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- a well-rounded consideration (classes taken, grades, scores)

- consideration of where the student excels

- using said considerations to see where the student needs help to assist them in achieving their goals

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