Public Education

In my opinion, there are several flaws in public education. One main flaw is standardized testing: the ACTs, the SATs (sometimes SAT subject tests…not looking forward to those), and the AP exams. At New Paltz High School, it is recommended that students take an absurd amount of tests throughout their education; it’s ridiculous, and that’s not even the worst part! You are required to pay for these exams, exams that are supposed to help you get into college. The problem with standardized tests is that they are not an accurate depiction of your intelligence. I don’t think colleges should place so much emphasis on one test. I believe that these tests are based more on your ability to manage your time, to guess wisely, and even to define whether or not you are a good test taker. Personally, I find these tests difficult because it is a lot of reading comprehension, which is not really my strong suit. In addition, these tests are expensive, so people with a lot of money can pay to take the tests several times and also pay for extra tutoring and books. This leads to an unfair advantage for people with not as much money, which then becomes an equality problem—a social issue. I imagine that students who attend private schools do better on standardized tests because their families are able to afford expensive SAT prep classes.

There are some ideas that I have to improve public education, but I’m not sure that they would be any better or give a more accurate reflection of a person’s intelligence. One suggestion would be to put more emphasis on doing an interview for colleges because the admissions director would get to see your personality. However, the problem with that is people could bribe their interviewer, or get along better with him than others, or even the interviewer could be racist, which would place certain students above other applicants. Another solution could be to only look at students’ academic record. Yet, even that is not always a precise portrayal of students’ intelligence. Some classes are harder than others; some teachers instructing the class are harder than the other teachers; furthermore, some students are considered the “teacher’s pet.” In that case, the student could receive higher grades, allowing the student to be easily accepted, or at least more likely to be admitted than others. In the early 1900s, the intelligence quotient (IQ) test was designed to assess human intelligence, but this test is also not a great representation of one's educational background. 

I conclude that there are many different methods on how to evaluate students applying to colleges, but none of them seem to be flawless. If colleges took the time to look at all of the applicants’ life history, such as their family background, school records (grades and classes), awards (varsity letters and academic awards), extracurricular activities (clubs and sports), college essays, and teacher comments, maybe even some peer comments, colleges would truly get to know the students on a more personal level. Perhaps students could form some kind of portfolio of their best work throughout their high school education. For example, their best essay, best project, or best art piece could be included. There is no perfect solution, but I think colleges try their best to be fair during the application process. There are some colleges you would consider as safety schools, schools you think you could easily get accepted to because of your test scores, and then there are reach schools, the very prestigious and rigorous schools. However, you could be surprised by getting rejected from your safety schools and accepted by your reach schools. The thing is, you never really know what colleges are looking for; you might just be exactly it, so it is important that you are optimistic and open to different types of colleges, and to not let a test determine how smart you are compared to other people in the world because people can be smart in their own way.