I find it quite odd that a key factor that colleges look at during the admissions process is your SAT score. Should SATs really be a determining factor in your academic future?

So you studied for months on end trying to learn all the material that will be covered in the SAT. All of that studying earned you a 1600, a perfect score. Sure, that looks fantastic on your college application. But why should it?

By achieving a perfect score on the SAT, you will be seen as very impressive to whoever is viewing your application. But why? Getting that 1600 shows nothing besides the fact that you can study well enough to complete a five hour long test that the College Board developed. Now, is studying a practical and necessary skill that will take you far in your educational career? Of course it is. But want to know a more practical and necessary skill that will prove to be even more fruitful? The idea of cognitive and creative freedom.

Who would you rather have as a future leader: Somebody who can articulate their thoughts freely and think for themselves? Or someone who was able to study a book for a few months and answer some questions correctly on an assessment?

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t strive to get a perfect SAT score; you should because our country’s academic system won’t allow you to go very far without that high score. What I am saying is that the SAT should not be the determining factor in your college career. Instead of an SAT, we should write essays free of a prompt. We should create our own mathematic questions.

We shouldn’t be confined to think only within the boundaries of the creators of this test. It simply makes no sense. If you were the one viewing two different college applications: Would you rather take the student who got a good score on a test that they can study for? Or the student who knows how to think for themselves and be cognitively free?