As an individual who has completed the college application process, the topic of the SAT's accuracy connects to my past experience.  During my junior year of high school, the SAT was one of the main things constantly on my mind, causing me additional stress and anxiety on top of the workload for my courses. Personally, I had distaste for all standardized tests at this point in my life because I understood the importance of receiving a good score when it came to the college application process. There is a pressure from society that is placed on the individual taking the test to receive the highest score possible.  I went through high school with the belief that the endless hours of homework and constant pressure for excellent grades took a freedom from teenagers to enjoy that time of their lives. I have taken the SAT twice in my life, so I understand the exhaustion from completing a 5 to 6 hour-long test. I have also experienced the college application process and used the average SAT score of certain colleges to narrow down which ones I ended up applying to because of assumptions of how my score would be perceived from admissions counselors. Is it fair to discourage students to not apply to certain schools simply because of a gap between a school's average SAT score and an individual's personal score?  But what interests me the most is how accurate of a tool the SAT is in predicting student's academic college success. 

An article published by the NY Times focuses on my research question, debating the reliability the SAT holds in predicting students' collegiate success. The article heavily supports the belief that the SAT has lost some of their significance in signaling the intelligence of individuals. Throughout the article the author, Balf, makes a point of using evidence to depict how a standardized test, specifically the SAT is not the single best predictor of someone' collegiate success. Balf makes several strong points as to why this is such the case. He emphasizes the immediate separation social class creates when discussing the variety of SAT scores. He points out that children who come from wealthy backgrounds typically score higher because of the money at their fingertips that is used for tutors and relatively expensive prep courses for standardized tests. He employs the use of pathos when stating, "an opportunity cost meaning that time spent in the narrow pursuit of beating the test meant time away from schoolwork and extracurricular activities that are actually designed to prepare students to succeed in college" (Balf). He also takes the time to begin to analyze the new structure of the SAT that is beginning to be tested in the spring of 2016. He ends his article with more objective, research based evidence to show the pros and cons of the reliability and predictability of the SAT for incoming college students. 

A second source is an article from npr.org. The author of this article agrees with the points argued from the NY Times source.  From this article, an individual is presented with more statistics and quotes as evidence to support the author's claims.  The article states, "exams better reflect a family's income and a student's speed at test-taking than aptitude, competency, or intelligence" (College Applicants). This quote forces the readers to question the real skills measured by the SAT.  This source also makes an effort to depict how it is nearly impossible it is for a single test to accurately predict valuable characteristic traits of all individuals. The audience should be concerned that the depth and complexity of humans' knowledge is being reduced to one number. This article is a nice supporter article of the first one I selected because it is definitely swayed to one side of the agreement of accuracy of the SAT. 

Last but not least, my final source questions what the SAT actually measures as opposed to what society and people wrongly think they measure.  The SAT is commonly accessed and too often used as the sole predictor tool in deciding the potential success a student will have in college. However, this article draws upon the ongoing debate of how necessary the test really is. Within this article, Strauss explains that standardized exams put a premium on strategic guessing but the real importance is that humans can develop the knowledge, skills and experiences that improve performance, if given the opportunity (Strauss). This article also takes the time to mention that this test does not depict, in the slightest, other valuable traits that individuals have that truly are a factor in their college success. When admitting students to college, admission counselors should want to see an individual as a big picture and not one measly number scored on the SAT. This article was published on the Washington Post website, which is known as a reliable source of information but can sometimes be biased to a degree depending on the topic. 

This research question is arguable. An individual could easily argue that the test is not an accurate tool because it does not encompass all the skills necessary for a college student to thrive. A second opinion is that there are advantages that certain students have that play a significant role in determining their test score. But someone could also argue that the test has been around for about 90 years and has continued to align with student's academic success in college. Among these three articles however, there seemed to be a common theme that the SAT should not be used singularly as a tool to predict success at the collegiate level. It is important to consider all aspects of a student's personality in order to better predict their academic success at the collegiate level. I would say that my opinions and beliefs coming into this research project align with the main ideas presented in the three articles I selected. I do know that in the next stage of research, I need to find reliable sources that argue that SATs are a worthy tool to be used during the college application and acceptance process. 

