Standarized Test

The overuse of standardized testing in this country disgusts me. In my naive mind I truly thought the SAT was the last of my standardized testing worries. Oh what a joke. College brings the GRE, MCAT, LSAT, FE... depending on where you want to go next. And since there are no jobs in this lovely country most of my friends and many others are choosing to further their education. It is terrifying. College graduates are not living up to the demands placed by these standardized test. For the majority of my friends, the material is not holding them back, often times it is learning how to take the test (do I answer the question or am I better off leaving it blank?). There is something wrong with that.

I bet you have heard of Kaplan, that wonderful company that charges you a 1000 plus dollars to teach you how to take a test. People swear by Kaplan, this is their future. I mean everything in education is an investment so this ungodly amount of money seems worth it. They make a guarantee but it is like all purchases, read the fine print. They guarantee to raise your score... not get you into med/law/grad school. You may dish out the money, take the class, still not perform well enough on the test, then eventually your score will decide med/law/grad school is not for you.

I am not bitter. I have not even taken one of these tests, yet. I was bitter, extremely bitter. In high school I performed horribly on my SAT. Later I learned my score was not so awful, just significantly below where I was expected to perform considering my academic standings. In my backwards mind (so American) I refused to take the ACT because I did not want to be mortified in front of my family, friends, and teachers again. I was so embarrassed by my score, I let it define me. Everything I had been involved in seemed worthless. I thought I was not going to get into college, well actually I had faith, but my guidance counselor told me I should look into tech schools. Excuse me, what is a tech school? Mind you, I graduated near the top of my high school class and went on to a wannabe top twenty public college and performed decent there.

I am not bragging at all. I am just trying to prove a point: standardized test have a limited ability to measure achievement. Before I subject myself to another silly standardized test that is going to label me with a number warning me to choose another path. Oh I can just hear the alarms now! "You are not cut out for grad school, you will never get funding." Assuming everything goes swell in Africa I will smile and think that I have already proved myself in the real world, an atmosphere I presume is slightly more challenging than grad school.