As of 2016, the SAT will undergo its largest change in 30 years. The SAT is known to be an aptitude test with the purpose to predict the success of a student during the freshmen year. Because the test was not helpful enough in predicting this success, It will now be looking for a firmer grasp on skills essential for the first year of college.

For incoming Wydown students, and the freshmen year alumni, the Explore, the PSAT, and the ASPIRE  tests are given to help assess student class placement in high school courses, and all give a window for councillors to help envision possible college placement.

The SAT and the ACT, however, can actually support college acceptance because they are meant to verify skills a student should have learned during his or her elementary and high school studies. These tests are not mandatory to graduate, but are given and are recommended to be taken. Some schools require that a student send in the test scores. Nevertheless, most colleges primarily focus on a student’s transcript and compare his or her classes to the outcome success.

The SAT is not exactly changing the test as a whole, but it is being refined and tuned for improvement.

“The college board sat down with about 400 freshman year college professors [to discuss changes]. What they did was they looked at all the students who had gotten a “c” or higher [in their course], and said that to have a “c” or higher in the course, you must get “this” score on the SAT. [This allows them to set] benchmarks for grade levels [and in turn, improving the test]. An example is the math [test]. They found out that students didn’t need as high of a proficiency in geometry, but [colleges] required strong algebra skills,” Caroline Blair, one of CHS’ college counselors.

Also mentioned that names of the sections from the test are changing according to their objectives.

“[For an example], before, the English section went from verbal to critical reading, but now it’s relevant words in context, to command of evidence and the use of charts, to essay analyzing,” Blair said.

In the end, the SAT and the ACT do not determine a student’s full potential. They are solely college entrance exams. For students who suffer from test anxiety or do not perform as well as they wish, there are schools called “test optional” in which a student can choose to send his or her own test scores. (The website to find these schools is: www.fairtest.org).

As a reminder, to keep going into higher levels of education such as medical school or law school, additional tests must be taken to be accepted into the schools. The tests are, once more, solely college entrance exams.