Reply #20: The ironic thing about the SAT [View All]

[Nikia]

Is that it was designed to give less affluent students a chance. I remember readin about it in Time or Newsweek a few years ago. It was used to identify less affluent boys who might benefit by going to Harvard.
Now the tests are often said to be less fair to economically disadvantaged students. That is true in several ways. On the otherhand, these scores may provide a valuable credential to students who went to intercity or rural schools, which do not have AP classes and are acknowledged to provide a poor educational program to college prep students. Although Harvard (or another highly competitive school) may admit students at these schools with lower test scores than their prep school applicants, they are not going to admit any student without an SAT score significantly above average and may not to take a chance on any of those students if there wasn't some kind of standardized test.