SATs Don't Get You In

By Joyce Slayton Mitchell

The numbers craze on SAT scores--in the media and in the minds of high school students and their parents--is surpassed only by the way people talk about their weight. It's as if students are their scores.

Choosing a college has become big business in America, with SAT coaching, companies vying to "package" students, canned personal essays, and paid college consultants outside the high schools creating a multimillion-dollar industry. Applications to competitive colleges are up and climbing, competition for admission is worldwide, and the media hype is sometimes pushing frenzied parents and students over the edge.

Within this moneymaking machinery, numbers are easy to understand and to sell. That's why parents and students alike ask college advisers questions like these: "Will a 1440 get me into Harvard? Columbia? Stanford?" "I have to go to Brown or Amherst or Georgetown--when should I take a course to raise my SATs?" My reply to anyone with a 650 verbal and a 650 math score and above is simple: "No, your test scores will not get you into Yale or Duke, but most important, they won't keep you out. And that's all you need to know about SAT scores. Don't waste your time and resources worrying about SATs, when there are so many interesting and exciting learning experiences you could...