Should the SAT still matter after all these years? Why some colleges are bringing it back

Generations of American teens have taken the SAT, a blood-pressure-raising multi-hour exam they are told could make or break their academic futures.

Generations of American teens have taken the SAT, a blood-pressure-raising multi-hour exam they are told could make or break their academic futures. The longest-enduring standardized college admissions test in the nation, the SAT has faced decades of controversy over bias and criticism for reducing aspiring college students to a test score. It has also been denounced as part of the high barrier to entry into the so-called American meritocracy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when dozens of the most prestigious universities in the nation suspended their standardized testing requirement, some were hopeful of a new era of more equitable college admissions. But this year, many of these institutions have done an about-face on their test-optional policies. At the same time, at least 1,825 US colleges and universities, or more than 80% of four-year schools, will still not require testing for 2025 admissions, according to FairTest, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing. The splintering of admissions policies post-pandemic has reinvigorated debate around the necessity of the SAT. Criticism has dogged the SAT for years. The exam, whose acronym originally stood for “Scholastic Aptitude Test,” was developed in the 1920s by Princeton-based eugenicist Carl Brigham, who believed immigration was diluting American intelligence and adapted US Army mental tests to determine whether similar exams could measure innate student intelligence. (Brigham retracted some of his views several years later.)