Recently, the College Board decided to discontinue the administration of the SAT essay portion and SAT subject tests. From now until the end of June, students will still be able to take the SAT with the essay portion, but after that time period, it will be discontinued. SAT subject tests have already been discontinued.
The essay portion of the SAT and the SAT subject tests should never have been implemented in the first place. 20 different subject tests were offered, 12 of which were foreign language tests. The College Board already offers AP tests for most of the foreign languages that they had subject tests for. Why would a student want to take an additional subject test if they took the AP test for that language? Colleges use the AP test to decide whether you need to take a foreign language in college, so there is no point in taking an additional subject test for the same thing. The only reason I can see a student taking foreign language SAT subject tests is if they want to do Hebrew or Korean. However, the College Board could just make AP tests for these two subjects instead.
As for the math, science, English, and history subject tests, the only reason students took them was because many colleges, especially if a student planned on majoring in a STEM field, recommended or required two math and science subject tests. If a college tells a student that a particular portion of the application, such as the SAT subject tests, are “optional,” students are still going to take them to get a competitive edge over other high-achieving students. They must take it because those other students will be taking them too. Since many of the applicants will take the subject test, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the students that do not take the subject test are left behind and become less competitive in admissions. In addition, similar to the foreign language tests, there are already AP exams that correspond to each math, science, English and history subject test. In fact, many of the AP exams test the subject on a higher level, such as the AP Calculus BC test. The corresponding SAT subject test is the Math 2 subject test, which tests math topics up to the equivalent of Math 3 or Precalculus in our high school curriculum.
Regarding the essay portion of the SAT, I think it should never have been implemented. For the essay portion, students read an article and write a 50-minute literary analysis essay that shows how the author attempts to persuade the reader, through evidence, reasoning, or stylistic elements. The SAT essay portion is a separate score from the rest of the SAT, which is scored in three categories—reading, analysis, and writing—with a maximum score of 8 in each, which totals to 24. However, these scores are deceiving. There are two graders, who each give a score from 1-4 in each category, and those two scores are added up for the category score. Most people get a 6/6/6 unless the graders disagree with each other, which usually does not happen. Each grader gives a 3 in each category, which means the essay was good but not great. I cannot understand why the grader’s scores are added up. They could easily just have the graders give a score from 1-8 and then average the two scores, which would allow graders to be more precise in their scoring. Also, if the passage is about a topic that you do not know anything about beforehand, it will unfairly impact your essay, due to the time constraints.
Many colleges already recognize that the SAT essay is not a good measure of writing skills and have decided to neither require nor recommend it. However, prior to its discontinuation, a few schools did require it, most notably Princeton and the UC system. Now that it has been discontinued, these schools have had to find other ways to measure writing skills, and an easy solution has been found. Princeton now has applicants submit a graded essay of their choice that they wrote after freshman year for an academic course, usually English. This is a much better way for students to showcase their writing, as the writing will be on a topic they understand and can argue for. In addition, when a student submits an application to any college, they will have to write many essays anyway, where admissions officers will be able to see and assess writing skills.
The essay portion of the SAT and SAT subject tests should never have been administered. To quote the College Board on why they are discontinuing subject tests, “We’re reducing demands on students. The expanded reach of AP and its widespread availability means the Subject Tests are no longer necessary for students to show what they know.”