I think it’s time to ban the SAT and The College Board. The SAT is clearly unfair to kids from poorer families. I mean, how many poor families can afford $3,000+ for a Princeton Review course that teaches kids how to game the SAT? Not many!
When I was 16, I took the SAT test for the first time. My idea of test preparation was going to the library and flipping through a $20 test prep book.
The result? A mediocre 1,040 out of 1,600.
My parents were disappointed so they encouraged me to actually buy a test prep book and this time take all the practice exams since I couldn’t write in the library book. After a couple of months studying I took the test again.
The end result? A better-than-average 1,160. However, my goal at the time had been to get a 1,200 or higher because that was the cut off level to be eligible for the best schools according to the data and the recommendation by my college counselor.
Didn’t Have The Money To Excel At The SAT
When I asked my parents whether I should take the exam again they said it was up to me. The test was three hours long and cost about $50 in today’s dollars to take the exam each time.
When I asked my parents whether I could take one of those private Princeton Review Courses that cost $500, they were not enthusiastic about the idea.
At the time, I couldn’t understand why they weren’t willing to pay to help me score better. I remember a rich Lebanese classmate telling me his parents paid $1,500 for SAT tutoring, so I thought $500 was a bargain. He ended up getting a 1,360 after he first got a 1,040 like me.
What I now realize as an adult is that money doesn’t grow on trees. When you don’t have an endless amount of money you’ve got to find a level where you must accept “good enough.”
Greater Wealth Correlated With Higher SAT Scores
The more time and money you can throw at the SAT, logically, the higher your SAT test score. I’m absolutely sure if my parents had spent $500 – $1,500 on SAT tutoring I would have gotten at least a 1,200 on my SAT.
I’m also sure that if I spent $1,500 and took the SAT exam 30 times, at least one of the top six scores accepted would have been higher than 1,200 as well. Heck, I might have even gotten a 1,400+ and gotten into Harvard to only get rejected by the investment bank I ended up working at!
But due to our financial circumstances, we decided a 1,160 SAT score was good enough for a kid who came to America at 14. I was already aware we didn’t have much money given we drove around in a seven-year-old Toyota Camry and lived in a small townhouse.
It’s not like I was going to attend a prestigious private university and pay $25,000 a year in tuition, equivalent to $50,000 a year in today’s dollars. Instead, I applied to in-state schools: Mary Washington, UVA, and William & Mary. For $2,800 a year, tuition at William & Mary was a bargain based on its ranking, so I went.
The College Board Profit Machine
Despite calling itself a “not-for-profit,” the College Board is one big money-making machine thanks to its monopoly position of administering the PSAT, SAT, and AP exams.
As of 2021, the SAT Reasoning Test plus the essay costs $64.50 ($93.50 if registering late) and the AP exams cost US $94 each. The SAT Subject Tests cost a baseline of $26 with a $22 fee for each test. Further, there are numerous other services available that can be added to the basic costs, including late registration, score verification services, and various answering services that are available.
SAT score reports cost $12 per college for 1–2-week electronic delivery, or 2–4-week paper or disk delivery, depending on what method the school requires ($31 extra for two-day processing).
Even College Board’s College Scholarship Service Profile (CSS), a college financial aid application meant to help students pay for college, requires a fee. For the 2019-2020 school year, the price is $25 for the first report sent and an additional $16 for each additional college receiving the information.
Take a look at the College Board’s historical profit and loss statements below according to TotalRegistration.net. With $1.1 billion in cash and investments, the College Board is one rich non-profit!
Thanks to hefty profits, the President of the College Board makes over a million dollars a year while several of its executives make over $300,000 a year in salary and benefits.
Maybe if non-profits stopped paying their executives so much money, they’d be more profitable. Or maybe, that’s the point of registering as a non-profit – to get favorable tax breaks and pay management big bucks. Cash cows are highly valuable in a low-interest rate environment.
Unfortunately for students, there are no other competitors for the SAT Subject, AP, and PSAT Tests. ACT still is far behind when competing against the main SAT test. When you have a monopoly, you can make excess profits.
The SAT Adversity Score
Conceptually, we know the more time and money you have to dedicate to studying for and taking the SAT test, the higher your test will be.
Now we know for sure there is a correlation with test scores and household income thanks to the College Board’s own data of millions of test takers. See the graphic below by the WSJ.
Nobody is going to argue against trying to even the SAT playing field for poorer households. Having parents who attended college or received a graduate degree is a huge competitive advantage because attending college is an expected part of the child’s upbringing.
For these college-educated families, all decisions made throughout their child’s grade school years are made with an eye on college admission.
The College Board, in all its social engineering wisdom, has decided to create an Adversity Index to help the less fortunate. Check out the multiple variables used to come up with a secret Adversity Index score that will only be reported to colleges and nobody else.
The College Board Should Help The Disabled
I applaud the College Board for trying to create more fairness in its test scores. The variables seem reasonable. But what about one of the biggest variables of all? Having some type of mental, visual, or physical disability that may prevent a student from reading as quickly or understanding as clearly?
Having a disability is one of the most important variables that will make life a little to a lot harder. To not include disability as one of the variables in the Adversity Index is a huge oversight, especially since more than 15% of the world’s population has some type of disability.
Further, why keep the Adversity Index score of between 0 – 100 a secret? Secrecy is what creates consternation that the system is rigged.
It would have been much better if the College Board just stuck to household income and the highest level of parental education when highlighting their data to push for the Adversity Index.
Including Race Is Insulting
Finally, why did the College Board and the WSJ have to include race in its Adversity Score promotion? I understand race is not one of the specific variables in the index.
By factoring race into SAT results, the College Board and the WSJ implies Black and Hispanic people are less intelligent than White and Asian people. As a result, unfair racial stereotypes will become sanctioned and spread.
The implication is insulting.
We all know a couple of the biggest factors in scoring well on the SAT are time and money. To imply race as a factor is racist.
It is not your race that allows you to score better or worse on the SAT. It is your circumstance and the environment you’ve been brought up in over your first 16-17 years that determines your SAT score.
Please do not let others make you believe race determines your SAT test-taking abilities. Whatever your race, know that you are good enough.
I truly do not believe my SAT score would have been any lower if I were White, Black, or Hispanic. And if you are White, Black, or Hispanic, do not believe your SAT score would be higher if you were Asian.
Related: Three White Tenants, One Asian Landlord: A Story About Opportunity, Or Lack Thereof
The College Board Is Dumb Smart
The College Board is all about making money. By creating these statistics and highlighting its secret Adversity Index, not only does it get a lot of publicity, but it creates a lot of anxiety.
One of the reasons why I’m writing this post is because I thought after seeing the first graphic, “Oh wonderful. I guess my son is going to have an even tougher time getting into college if I am correctly reading between the lines.”
I started questioning why I decided to get an MBA part-time while already working 60-70 hours a week. Those three years were a killer. I’ve also started to wonder why the hell am I working, saving, and investing so aggressively to try and generate over $200,000 a year in passive income?
Spending an extra 20 hours a week for three years to get an MBA part-time and another 25 hours a week writing on Financial Samurai to generate active income to reinvest to generate more passive income were two things I could control.
But something I cannot control is being born a certain race and neither can my son. So why should my son be penalized for being Asian on the SAT and in college admissions? That’s not right.
Don’t forget. His old man got a mediocre SAT score.
I have little problem if the College Board and Universities want to penalize children of affluent families who have parents with graduate degrees. I draw the line at kids getting penalized for their race.
Organizations making life harder for my son is a huge motivating force to keep my business going forever. I want him to have the option of bypassing such institutions altogether.
Now consider all the other Asian and White families who may not have their own businesses and are thinking they need to spend even more money on SAT tutoring and materials to run in place.
Now think about all the Black and Hispanic families who can now either believe the College Board’s pontification that race is a factor in their SAT test results or think they should perhaps spend more money on SAT tutoring and testing because they then might have a better chance at attending college.
What makes me particularly annoyed about the College Board’s decision to highlight race in their propaganda is that it may create self-doubt. Succeeding at whatever you want has a lot to do with self-confidence and vanquishing FOPA.
Put In The Effort If You Want To Succeed
For 10 years, I’ve tried to instill in readers that you deserve to be rich and successful if you put in the effort, no matter your race. The College board is doing the opposite and undermining my efforts.
The College Board is simply race-baiting families into spending more time and money on the test to ameliorate the anxiety they manufactured. It’s like spending $100 applying to great preschools and having no chance of getting in .
Unfortunately for the College Board, their attempt to boost its revenue from nervous parents of all socioeconomic classes and races will prove temporary.
The Long Term Trend Is Negative For The SAT And The College Board
Students and parents aren’t going to be uninformed forever. As the value of a college degree depreciates due to the lower returns, higher costs, higher student debt, free internet, and an increasingly exposed rigged system, more people will begin to opt out of going to a traditional four-year college.
As more people opt out of a four-year college, fewer people will be taking the SAT.
If there is a way to short the SAT and The College Board, please let me know! I think we could make a lot of money once parents know the gig is up.
At the very least, we could pressure the non-profit to share some of its massive profits by lowering the cost of test-taking and test preparation to allow for more underprivileged kids to score higher.
But when your main purpose as a non-profit is to make lots of profits as a monopoly to pay yourself boatloads of money, it’s hard to really make a change for the greater good.
I’m very glad more and more colleges are omitting SAT test scores from their admissions process. The University of California system is the largest school system that began the process. Now many other colleges are following suit!
Related posts about college:
The Wide Implications Of The College Admissions Scandal
Why More Public Schools Will Rank Higher Than Private Schools In The Future
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They do suck.
They have reps that so not speak English well and system often crashes so cannot register properly. They tell you one thing one call and 10min later tell you another.
Agree with below writer!
I Hate The College Board
David Coleman can fight me
Lily O, Staff Writer|March 27, 2021
I+Hate+The+College+Board
The College Board sucks and here’s why.
1) They are an exploitative “non-profit” organization.
In 2020, The College Board grossed approximately $1.2 billion USD by exploiting desperate high school students. Nearly 2.2 million students took the SAT in 2020 and were forced to pay a fee of $52 and $68 if they chose to complete the essay as well. Additionally, many students will take the test multiple times to improve their score as attending a prestigious institution is partially contingent on high standardized testing scores. For example, I took the SAT three times outside of school and ended up paying a total of $156. The College Board recognizes that a majority of students will take the SAT at least once and have chosen to capitalize on students’ desperation for a high score. In addition to standardized testing, students are forced to pay outrageous amounts to take AP tests. AP courses count as “college-credits” and represent a high-intensity course load on high school transcripts. If you want to show colleges you’re capable of taking on college-level courses then you bet your a** you’re taking an AP test, especially at AMHS. The issue is, in order to take an AP test you have to pay a fee of $95 per exam and if you order the test late you incur a $40 late fee. Even if you only took one AP class per year in HS, you would still be giving $380 to The College Board to take tests. In addition to this, if you want to send your AP scores to colleges after you receive them you have to pay a score-send fee of $15 PER COLLEGE and pay $11.25 to send your SAT scores if you don’t use your “4 free sends” when you register for the test. If you don’t want to blindly send your AP and SAT scores to schools then you might end up paying an arm and a leg just to apply for higher education. The College Board wants you broke before you even get a chance to be accepted.
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The College Board wants you broke before you even get a chance to be accepted. ”
2) You can’t get into college without them… and they know that.
This one is quite possibly the most infuriating aspect, The College Board has a monopoly. It is essentially impossible to apply to college without them. Even if you somehow make your way through high school without taking a single AP class or taking the SAT, a large majority of schools will require you to submit a CSS profile in addition to FAFSA if you want to be eligible for non federal financial aid. And guess what… there’s a fee! It will cost you $25 to fill out the CSS profile and send it to one school. If you want to send it to more, it’s an additional $16 per college. There is no way around it, one way or another every high school student will eventually be roped into forking over their money.
3) Finances
Finally, I think it is time to dive a little deeper into the financial aspect of The College Board and where all the money they steal from students goes. First off, the CEO of college board, David Coleman, supposedly makes about $1 million dollars a year. That’s right, MILLION. Additionally, many college board executives will take home about $300,000 – $500,000 a year. The average household income in the United States is roughly $68,000 and the average cost of college is about $20,000 – $30,000 per year. The College Board uses lower income students and families to make a profit and include their employees in the 1%. The company has no concern for the students it was designed for and could care less if simply applying to college makes it harder to put food on the table. When America decided that a college education would be the baseline to acquire a successful career, The College Board should’ve recognized it as well. Getting a higher education should not be a luxury when it has become a necessity.
Overall, The College Board is a shady “non-profit” monopoly that has little to no concern for students or their families. They find money in any way they can through score sends, testing fees, cancellation fees, late fees, etc because they recognize there is no way around it. I am disgusted by their practices, and yet I probably gave them over $1000 because I want to go to college. It is essentially impossible to boycott The College Board, so sign every petition that you can, leave them snarky comments on Instagram, make your voice heard and tell them how much they suck. I’m not one to support bullying, but maybe if we hate on the company just enough… they’ll see the error of their ways (but probably not). At the end of the day, money is what makes the world go round, and it’s difficult to make money without going to college
I have to admit, as a black man with kids, I am in favor of the adversity index and implication that race engineering is the end goal for the index.
My family makes about $800,000 a year, and I have two sons. If they can get an advantage on the SAT score and college admissions, while also being taken care of by me and their mom, that’s great for my family.
You can’t always have winners in society. It’s time for America to purposefully make African-Americans winners again. White people had their time already and Asian people will just have to wait another generation or two.
LOL…very good chance the Russians have infiltrated your message board to stir the pot with this one…
Sam, the SAT Preparation book cost $20 back when you took the test, and is still today cheaper than the $50 re-test fee you paid to take another bite of the apple. You owe your parents $30.
One good troll deserves another, FS.;-) Seriously, people are different, and the attachment to tribal identity is proof. We all want the best for everyone and for equal opportunities for everyone. So when outcomes are different by race, income, gender, parents education level, etc. the difference is hard to accept. Correlation doesn’t indicate causation.
The SAT test has been retooled and rebaselined multiple times in the past few decades, and it makes no difference. Racial gaps still appear, and even become greater. Here’s another example of differences:
https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php
Look at the top 20 countries for IQ, which are monocultures with minimal ethnic diversity. Look at the bottom 20 countries, also monocultures with minimal ethnic diversity. What do you observe? Is this a surprise? Is it bad?
Would doing away with IQ tests help make things more equal? Would doing away with SAT and ACT tests make things more equal? Would the differences and stereotypes go away?
Correlation doesn’t indicate causation. Except when it comes to IQ and….climate? Clearly no imbedded bias here…
This is sooo stupid. This will just stack the system ever more in favor of the rich because they will have the resources to game the system. With the system, here’s what to do if you have money:
1. Buy a house in poor crime ridden neighborhood and make that your primary address for a few years. You are now officially a poor resident. Side consequence is pushing out existing residents. Yay gentrification? If you’re super rich, you can buy a whole apartment building and keep the units empty and unkempt. Now you have low vacancy AND you have lower property values. After your kids take the SAT, you sell the property (possibly to another rich family) and get all your money back.
2. Temporarily get a divorce just as your kids are taking the SAT. After your kids take the SAT, get remarried. Boom, single parent. Give sole custody to a spouse with no income. Now your low income! ESL – LMAO yeah English was my second language, 25 years ago. But who cares, I’m ESL now!
3. High school environment – Home school with private tutor for Freshman and Sophomore years. BAM! No AP at home. No matching. Take the SAT before Junior year. After kids take the SAT, enroll in a private school with AP/IB or whatever and proceed as usual.
I saw all three in high school
1. A pair of very wealthy physicians sent their daughter to an inner city school near their job becuase the school had low schools and was in an economically depressed area, making it far easier to stand out and have the “rags-to-ritches” story despite going home to very posh neighborhood. She had extra tutors to make sure she knew everything so the only real risk was the safety of the area.
2. My mother got married and married well right before my senior year of college. Being the good citizen I am, I was obligated to put the official amount on the joint tax documents which meant that I was disqualified for pretty much any need based aid despite not actually getting a dime from my father (alcoholic who surprisingly isn’t in jail) or stepfather. Only after college did I learn that nobody really verifies income so plenty of people just used one parent or similar.
3. I saw much the same. The parents “in-the-know” and with money started all the way in middle school if not earlier. The top 10 people in my high school class could not be beat even with straight As because they were taking high school courses in middle school during the school and during the summer. Neither option was publicly offered by ANY school in my district.
These tests can be gamed in all sorts of ways. I am pretty sure there were more than a few Chinese classmates who paid someone to take their tests because they lacked very, very, very basic skills compared to other international and native students. The admissions scandal we recently saw is just the tip of the iceberg in the USA, but is a quietly accepted practice elsewhere.
And then there’s the wonderful SSAT for elite private schools and its junior equivalents. The craziness begins at preschool.
My mother made an apt point. “If you have the money, why not do what the Kusher’s did and just donate your way in?”
It is rational to assume that if you have the money, you will do whatever you can to buy yourself more access and an easier life for you and your kids. We are seeing this play out in real time and I don’t think it’ll ever change.
Sam-
The race conversation that you once again stroke is one sided and ignores what blacks, native americans and latinos typically face in terms of racism that aren’t consistently faced by other minorities. Think about the unbalanced incarceration rates, police brutality, educational bias amongst teaching professionals based on implicit racism as early as age 5. These are MUCH more serious issues than college entrance. d
Drop affirmative action based on race once we correct our judicial system & implicit racism. Come on Sam, the data is all there and I know you’re better than this?
For example, why don’t you ever comment on your son not having to worry about being pulled over and harrassed by the police? How about the fact that he’s a male? Being a definitely has it’s advantages in university admission in comparison to a female. Sam, be more open and less one sided.
Hi John – Because I HAVE been pulled over and harassed by police MULTIPLE times. I even had the police come to my house and yell at me and hold a gun about to draw for not showing my ID that I own my own house.
Are you saying Asians don’t face racism as a minority in America as well? Are you saying the discrimination I face or other Asians face feels different and less that what other minorities face?
What race are you and what makes you think Asians don’t face racism in America? I do want to understand why there is a common disregard for the plight of Asians in America, but not all other minorities. And do want to understand why we can’t focus on upbringing disadvantages instead.
Thanks
Related:
Silent Threats In The Night
The Importance Of Feeling Consistently Uncomfortable For Progress
The Chinese Exclusion Act
To both Sam and Andy-
I NEVER said asians don’t face racism, please read my post. I’ve actually stood up for asians (and non asians) who’ve encountered racism from others when they’re not present. I have ZERO tolerance for racism. Also, zero disregard for the racism that asians face. However, I did mention the actual Data that exists amongst the other those minorities (black, native Americans & Hispanics) within the criminal justice system (more time for the same crimes as non minorities) , education, etc. And unfortunately failed to mention asian.
However Sam, this mirrors exactly what you’ve done on the asian front for different topics while failing to mention data for other ethnicities, Right? Sam, you also keep mentioning bringing up opportunities for disadvantaged, but then you’re against this adversity measure for poorer families followed by an false claim that it’s the measure is racist?
I’ve reread your post and still can’t figure out why you had to go the “this is race based affirmative route” on this one when it’s clearly not race based. However, it’s what “you’re reading and seeing” between the lines.
Right on my brother! We need to do more to help black people in this country. If it ends up hurting other races in the process, then so be it. We have suffered enough.
I worked hard to become an executive and make multiple six figures a year. I should be rewarded and so should my children.
@sam, it’s okay that you didn’t post my initial reply but please clarify a few items:
– i never said Asians don’t face racism, but i did mention that the data shows it’s in fact at different levels for different situations. Similarly to how native Americans face higher levels of racism than African americans within the judicial system and also have higher chance of being murdered by cops than any other race.
– discrimination is discrimination in and I have Zero tolerance for racism which is why I always plead that you look at the full picture. It’s no different how your posts consistently target african Americans and Hispanics while failing to include native Americans.
– my nationality is African American and part native american; for what its worth my spouse is half asian and we now have a child who’s 1/4 asian
– i love looking out for the disadvantaged as I grew up surrounded by poverty, however i struggle to see this in your post. For example the adversity index tries to do this but yet you take the conversation to being about racial division amongst minorities?
Best of success
How is Sam racially biased when he is encouraging the mega profit SAT and colleges to LOOK BEYOND RACE when making an objective decision about a student?
It makes no sense to say that every other minority except for Asians experience racism. That’s either ignorant or a racist statement.
Have you ever thought that perhaps the reason why the incarceration rates are the way they are is because people of certain races commit more crimes than other races?
I truly hope you’re not some white guy who has no idea of what it’s like to be a minority in America. But your last statement makes it obvious you’re ignorant.
Asians face racism in America all the time. Just because Asians aren’t as vocal about racism and decides to get on with it more doesn’t mean racism doesn’t exist.
@andy: my last statement about sams son concern for the cops could’ve been better stated as potentially having less concern for being pulled over “statistically speaking”. However the fact that males have an advantage in college admissions vs equally qualified females process is true. Also, the fact that many of Sam’s racially based posts are one side are also true. Nothing wrong with that because it’s his site, but it’s just the truth.
@andy: please indicate where the sat is factoring in race?
“Drop affirmative action based on race once we correct our judicial system & implicit racism.”
I want it all to be corrected, but only by improving things for the folks that need it. I reject any plan that involves anyone willingly agreeing to being second-class citizens for even a few generations, let alone some subjective measure that may never be agreed on.
You don’t get to higher places by stepping on other people who mean you no harm, and never did any to you.
I’m not as awesome, I only scored 1400 on the SAT, pretty low in my asian community of 1500s and perfects, but in the end, we went to each of our respective state schools (for my friends living in CA). The only difference between me and my 1500s counterparts was the scholarship offered. I’m fine with it because my family saved up for college (we’re middleclass) and we live pretty close to our state college, close enough to commute everyday. In the end, I can get the same opportunities as 1500s kids and more if I actively seek to.