Aptitude Tests Issue

Since the beginning of the XX century, the Scholastic Aptitude Test has become a key feature of measuring both merit and privilege. However, it has hardly been changing for almost thirty next years, when in the beginning of the 1950s, it became a major service for meritocracy measurement. These changes positively influenced the usage of the system and already in 1960, the University of California required the Test for entrance, hereby becoming the biggest consumer of the services. Soon, all the universities, that have a four-year education system, made the Scholastic Aptitude Test obligatory to go to any educational establishment.

Talking about the Scholastic Aptitude Test

Test Origin

Even though, the Test is now widely used for entering purposes, its history began not very brightly and even in a bit blurred way. Its founder, Mr. Carl Brigham, was a really educated and sophisticated scientist, though he was extremely prejudiced to non-white races. He considered that people of “Nordic” origin in America had to have more rights and tried to prove scientifically that such nations as the African-Americans, Jews and Italians cannot be taught the way the white Americans are. He then eventually established the test, stating that with its help, it would be quite easy to separate educable and uneducable citizens.

Test Progress

A hundred years after that the Scholastic Aptitude Test was already popular and spread around the country with different reasons. Indeed some colleges used it to divide students into white and non-white, while others simply applied the test for social and cultural reasons to find out particular data about the dependency of knowledge from personal background. Actually, people who had educated parents, a normal lifestyle, and a wealthy way of life support at home showed their relevant correspondence with good knowledge and skills. Those were majorly white people.

Bias Issue

Even though the nowadays society tries to avoid that skepticism and racial confrontations are no longer visible in everyday life, the origin of the SAT cannot be forgotten. First of all, it should be remembered that small universities do not apply the Test due to the fact that they have enough time to get acquainted with all the applications of the future students. On the other hand, big universities cannot dispense without the test as the number of applicants is enormous and separating them into knowledgeable and less knowledgeable is the only way to cope with the students’ flow. From the side, it really seems as prejudice, luckily not on racial but still on education background. For now, it is the only way to conduct a university submission process flawlessly and beneficially.

Carl Brigham has soon refused from his views and rejected some of his opinions; however, a lot of damage has already been done. The country failed to come up with any better solution and still has to recover a lot from the biased test.