The SAT Subject Tests: Goodbye and Good Riddance
When the College Board announced the end of the SAT Subject Tests in January, high school juniors across the country breathed a collective sigh of relief. So did parents, counselors, and administrators.
This change is long overdue. A lesser-known stepchild of the SAT, the Subject Tests were first introduced in the 1930s as “Achievement Tests” or “Scholarship Tests.” In 1994 they were rebranded “SAT II: Subject Tests,” later simplified to “SAT Subject Tests.”
Like their name, the rationale behind the tests fluctuated over time. While the original SAT or “Scholastic Aptitude Test” purportedly measures general intelligence (what it actually measures is another issue), the Subject Tests were designed to test student achievement in individual fields: English, history, biology, etc.
In the early years, a primary purpose of the Subject Tests was to help college admissions officers externally validate high school grades. This made sense. In the 1940s and 50s, as the elite northeastern colleges began to broaden their scope and transform into national universities, they wanted more information about their applicants. A Yale admissions officer would certainly know what an “A” in English at a feeder school like Hotchkiss meant, but would have little idea how to interpret the transcript of a promising young scholar from Omaha. “Achievement Tests” offered a way to compare each student’s academic performance in a more standardized way.
While that may have made sense in 1950, by the early 2000s most students applying to selective colleges were enrolled in Advanced Placement courses, the International Baccalaureate program, or attending an elite high school. AP, IB, and a brand-name school all give college admissions officers exactly what the Subject Tests purported to offer: external validation of academic performance.
Indeed, throughout my career as an educator I’ve felt that the Subject Tests were an unnecessary burden. AP tests offer students performance validation with the added benefit of potential college credit. Although there is still much work to be done, in the last two decades AP courses have also become much more widely available to young people from low-income and other marginalized communities (I wrote about this for The Washington Post back in 2007, when I was teaching AP courses at an inner-city high school in Washington, DC).
Unfortunately, SAT Subject Tests ended up becoming an additional layer of testing and stress for students, most of whom are overworked and overtested. Even colleges agree; over the past decade, many dropped the Subject Tests from their admissions requirements.
What does this change mean for students? It’s good news. For teenagers attending elite high schools, it means there are fewer standardized tests to take. While college admissions officers know what an “A” at Horace Mann, Harvard-Westlake, or TJHSST means, many applicants have still taken Subject Tests to maintain their competitive advantage in the admissions process. Moving forward, that won’t be necessary – or even possible.
For kids at all other high schools, both private and public, it means that programs like AP and IB will likely become even more important in the coming years. With the Subject Tests gone, college admissions officials will almost certainly rely more heavily on AP scores to assist in interpreting the transcripts of students from high schools they don’t know well.
Overall, this announcement is a welcome change for students. Most of the kids I work with are highly stressed and need some things taken off their plate. I’m glad the College Board has finally closed the book on the Subject Tests.
