When Little Kids Take Big Tests

CHARLES BENNETT/AP

A few Saturdays ago, a group of students scrambled into seats at Brother Rice High School in suburban Detroit to take the SAT college entrance exam. Some of their feet didn't touch the floor. Why? Because dozens of the students were seventh-graders or younger. One was in third grade. That same morning, my own daughters, ages 6, 10 and 12, were at home, watching cartoons and eating Pop-Tarts. It didn't occur to me to measure their smarts against those of high-schoolers. Or even to fake doing so, like "boy genius" Justin Chapman's mother, who falsely claimed that her 6-year-old son had a perfect math score.

The SAT is open to anyone who pays a $25 fee, and parents are having their kids take it at younger and younger ages--for practice, for bragging rights, for a chance to get into programs for gifted children at universities like Johns Hopkins. More than 172,000 students in eighth grade or lower took SAT or ACT college entrance exams last year, up 19% since 1996.

Donna Coughlin, who administers the SAT in Winnetka, Ill., says the surge in "midget" test takers makes for "a brutal morning." Young kids ask endless questions, do more fidgeting, need more bathroom breaks and are more apt to throw up.

Much of the SAT's material isn't taught until high school, so younger children often score poorly. Critics say giving the test so early saps the confidence of insecure kids and creates competitive students who focus not on learning but on mastering standardized tests.

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Those who favor early testing say it allows bright students to see how far beyond grade level they are, so their learning can be adjusted. And some precocious kids enjoy the challenge. "It gives them terrific experience at test taking," says Susan Grant, whose son first tried the SAT in sixth grade and now attends Harvard. In Farmington Hills, Mich., Aaron Dubin, 18, has taken the SAT nine times since he was 12, lifting his score from 1050 to 1530.

There's even a practice run for peewee test takers. To join "gifted" programs, students in grades 3 through 6 can take an ACT designed for eighth-graders. It's not for my kids, though. They have cartoons to watch, CDs to play, childhoods to live. I cringed when I heard about a mom who brought her video camera to a classroom window at a Michigan high school. Her child was inside taking this ACT, and she wanted to capture the moment.

"It was a bumper crowd of little kids, with parents in the hallway trying to get a glimpse of them," recalls Rob Leider, assistant principal at the school, West Bloomfield High. His heart went out to these youngsters: "They seemed pretty studious. But when they finished and came out of the rooms, they were little kids lost in a big building, looking for their mothers."

For more on these tests, log on to collegeboard.com or ACT.org