Editor's Note: Monday’s American Morning story on the SATs garnered divided response, as some felt such standardized tests were nothing more than a barrier to higher education. Others believed the tests were important to help maintain a higher standards for educational institutions.
- Mickey: Recently my daughter was studying to take the GRE's for entrance to a masters program. Her life long dream is to be a Doctor of Psychology. After several rebellious years she turned her life around. She has her BA in Psyche. Faced with the GRE's, she did not do well because of her severe anxiety. I know she has a deep love and passion to help people with mental illness. If the GRE's like the SAT's makes it unobtainable for her that is a tragedy. Abstract thinking can not always be measured. I think they should not be required to have that much weight.
- Jonathan: Carol Costello's report on the SATs was grossly misleading. They are not designed to measure intelligence but knowledge. She also presents some air head kids who complain about how hard it is. The great problem with education is that students and their parents want everything to be easy. And CNN goes along with the rest of the media encouraging that self pity. Soon we will have a nation even dumber that it is, unable to do much and certainly not to compete with the children of other countries who require that their children learn even if it is tough. The SATs may be the only generalized measure of how much or how little kids know going into higher education. It is moreover terribly wrong to try and twist this story into an investigation of SAT staff salaries. I took the SATs years ago. It wasn't such an agony. This report of Costello’s was a misrepresentation of facts, an editorial rather than a report and an encouragement to a backward ill educated public.
- Kathleen: The SAT is a valuable measure of one's learned knowledge, which needed to advance that knowledge and succeed in college. We have had enough dumbing down of our educational system, television and other media. Let's keep our standards high. And what is wrong with a little angst?
How do you feel about the SATs? Are they useful or outdated? What has your experience been with the SAT and other standardized tests?