Should SATs Matter?

For the past two weeks, TIME has been asking famous and accomplished people to tell us their SAT scores. Most of them declined--which is a little strange, since the big bad test couldn't possibly hurt Alan Greenspan or Oprah Winfrey. But the SAT occupies a central place in the American psyche, lying at the terrifying intersection of ability, class and pride. As TV's Conan O'Brien put it, "It has taken 20 years to forget the trauma of that damned test, and looking up my scores would be like going back to Vietnam."

The test's prominence ensures that shouting matches will erupt over it regularly. Usually one side says the SAT should die because it's racist; the other says it should flourish because it maintains standards. Their arguments are important but had started to seem pointless, since the number of SAT takers has increased virtually every year since Pearl Harbor.

Then, in a Feb. 18 speech to his fellow college presidents, the psychologist who runs the University of California suggested something radical: Scrap the thing. Richard Atkinson says the test hurls kids into months of practicing word games and math riddles at the expense of studying chemistry or poetry. He wants to make SAT scores an optional part of the application for all 90,000 kids who want to go to U.C. each year. "The SATs have acquired a mystique that's clearly not warranted," he proclaims. "Who knows what they measure?" Those of us who wanted to stick a No. 2 pencil in our eye while puzzling the meaning of "mendacious" gave a cheer.

Last week U.C.'s faculty and regents started what will be a long, fiery debate over his proposal. Since Atkinson began attacking the test, college administrators across the U.S. have reopened old fights about the SAT and started new ones. President John Peters of Northern Illinois University says the reaction of the hundreds of college officials to the speech was "extremely positive"; he plans to suggest a review of his school's standardized-test requirements at the next faculty meeting. The Georgia board of regents is reviewing admissions criteria, as are the University of Texas, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the College of Wooster in Ohio.

Most universities have no immediate plans to stop asking for SAT scores. But at those schools that were having second thoughts about the test, Atkinson's stance will embolden anti- SAT forces. "It's gutsy," says Florida International University admissions chief Carmen Brown, "and a lot of other places will follow." The College Board, which oversees the SAT, was worried enough after the speech to e-mail colleges a defense of its test.

The board had plenty of reasons to worry before then. The California rumblings come at a precarious time for the SAT. To be sure, it remains a key part of the college-application process. Last year 44% of the kids who graduated from high school took it, up from 41% in 1995. In all, more than 2 million students took the SAT in 2000. The second biggest admissions test, the ACT, had 1.8 million takers last year. Published by an Iowa testing company, the ACT started in 1959 as a rival to the SAT and focuses more on subject matter than general reasoning. But the ACT never developed the SAT's aura of quality and rigor. Whenever a college suggests dropping its SAT requirement, traditionalists on campus inevitably say doing so would lower standards.