The SAT until now and Affirmative Action

[darkoneofpower]

Recently I had discovered some most disturbing news about the SAT. Ivy League schools have been around for some time. They were made for those who could afford it, which were few, and who wanted to become a clergy person. In 1862 an act was passed to create more schools for the people of America that were made due to the industrial revolution. These are the state schools we have today. These schools main focus were the sciences.

The Morill Act that had been pased made it so that if you graduated from High School you can automatically get into the State Univerisities. Due to the new law people had to be accepted into the school of there choosing, so came the first SAT.

Ivy League the Ivy League schools (such as Harvard, Yale, Wake Forest and such) wrote the first SAT in order to keep out those they deemed not intelligent enough to get into their school they made the test based on the facts they believe the elite (meaning rich) White Nortic (that is people from England) race (as it was called at that time) would the only ones able to get into the Ivy League. Yet Jews (from other countries even)were passing more than the white sons of the elite. Thus the second SAT was formed.

The SAT was written based on the thought that intelligence was based on what race you were, and it was written in order to keep Jews out of the Ivy League colleges and it has been this way until this year. This is one of the major reasons that there is a huge gap between white and minorities when it comes to the SAT scoring, especailly on the verbal part. The truth is that if the SAT had been truely testing how well one would do in college and how smart a person was the Asians, not the whites, would be scoring the highest on the SAT.

I am in no way racist, and I had also taken this test as did most of us with the belief that there was no ctach to it. I would like to know what you think of this. Up until this year this test has been the standard at all colleges. Thanks to the U of California the SAThas been changed.

What do you feel about this? What is your feelings towards affirmative action? And what about athletes (which I am one), did you know that atheltes and legacies are more accepted than any group? Please let me know your thoughts.

[BakaBaka]

First off, I believe it to be baised to say that asians are 'smarter' than whites. It isnt a matter of race, but rather a matter of the culture that people grow up in and how they are told to do certain things. The asians happen to have a culture that pushes their children to do better in school but on the other hand, they have one of the highest suscide rates in the world. It is all based on view point and how you grow up. Yes, some people are different interally but I mean with a large group of people. However, back to your question, many things are like that in that people try to only get what they consider to be top. I feel however that laws that are designed to help certain races are in themselves discriminating. I dont care to answer anything else, school has me tired x.x

[darkoneofpower]

I just wanted to add that studies show that Asians would score higher on this past SAT test, this is not my oppinion.

[Ancient Goddess]

Well, in my opinion, they should have at least notified the students about this catch. I mean, sure, in the 1800's, a lot of ethnic groups and races were discriminated against...but I would at least like to think that it has improved since then. Shouldn't we get a right to know that our scores may have been decreased thanks to some old rule? I spent a good couple of hours cooped up in a classroom, trying to get the best score I possibly could....answering all the questions to the best of my ability...and a large percentage was deducted because I'm African-American?

Now comes the idea that all people were created equally, and this test kinda proved that we're not entirely considered to be in a handful of people's eyes. The SAT is a big test, and often an, or supposed to be, an indicator of our intelligence. I'm sure that the majority of people who had written the tests over the years became less and less aware that it was based on race and income, but if these facts are true, in the end, it still gets scored that way.

It's good that finally someone has believed it was time to throw that rule out, but I wish it could have happened when I was still in high school. Maybe then I would get a better score...and go to a better college (Lord knows I need it).