Students across the nation anxiously awaited the chance to get onto the CollegeBoard website Oct. 22 to access their most recent SAT results. For most, this was a moment of great anxiety and fear, while others felt more confident in their performance.

Standardized testing is used as a method by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) to assess student’s general and necessary knowledge at whatever grade level they may be in. The tests are designed in a way that eliminates any bias in the way questions are asked, thus giving a fair chance to any student that knows the material.

At Liberty HS, many students awoke that day intending to check their scores right away. The CollgeBoard’s website visitation traffic was so heavy, however, that it went down temporarily, much to the annoyance of many students.

Currently, standardized testing is a highly disputed topic amongst teachers, parents, students and educational administrators. Many see it as an inaccurate way of assessing a student’s intelligence and capability, which they attribute to many different factors, including high stress levels during tests and/or surrounding the test itself; belief that the tests favor those with a high socio-economic standing; teacher’s inevitable tendency to “teach to the test;” and artificially high levels of pressure that may limit a student’s ability to perform to their full capacity.

Asked about her overall experience with the most recent SAT, Liberty HS senior Lety Flores said, “My stress level was pretty high. I think there’s a lot of pressure, especially for seniors. The whole time, you’re thinking about how schools base your acceptance – which affects at least the next four years of your life – on a test that you can’t prepare for and that only lasts a couple hours.”

What Flores had to say certainly holds some truth. According to a study published in an article on pbs.org, SAT scores are becoming less and less important to colleges throughout the nation. Former Dean of Admissions for Bates College William Hiss led the study. According to the article, the results showed that there was a “negligible difference in college performance between the two groups. Only .05 percent of a GPA point set “submitters” and “non-submitters” apart, and the difference in their graduation rates was just .6 percent,” submitters being those who sent in their SAT scores, and non-submitters being those who didn’t.

It seems that a student’s grade point average (GPA) – the cumulative score of a student’s final grades in class built up over their four years in high school - is more significant than actual testing scores, as it should be. Based on that, the following question can be posed: Why are students still taking these seemingly important standardized tests if colleges don’t consider them nearly as much as they claim to? With any luck, these tests will become obsolete in the following decade.