by Tammy Stoner

Created on: January 19, 2009   Last Updated: March 21, 2009

The SAT should be abolished as a method of determining admission into college. It is a poor indicator of how well somebody performs in college. I base my argument on personal experience.

In 1975, my parents divorced, and I took the SAT at that time. At the time, my concentration was poor, my sleep erratic, and I didn't care about the results of the test. I recall taking the test, and remember hearing that the best answer on the test was to answer "B", so this answer was given for the vast majority of questions.

I didn't have the patience for the test, and when I didn't know the answer, I answered with the choice of "B". Distracted due to family problems, I scored poorly. In fact, I did so horribly on the test, that it was predicted by the test results, that if I attended college, I would achieve a D-, in school performance.

I wasn't a very good high school student, far more interested in socializing with peers, than any application of real study, and I must admit attended college, only to get away from my home environment, and away from parents battling through a messy divorce.

Off i went to a college that would accept anybody, as a student. During my first semester, I had a B average. Not great, but certainly not the D- average that had been predicted on the SAT test.

After one semester of college, I transferred to another college, and was accepted based on my performance at the first college. I received straight A's, through the remainder of my school years.

Throughout college, I was told that I was highly creative, and had an ability to write well. Since I had performed so poorly on the SAT, i suffered from a self esteem problem, as I didn't believe i was really capable of performing well in school, and convinced myself, that I did well, only because I was "lucky".

Later, I attended graduate school, and while I performed better on the graduate record exam than on the SAT test, I was still convinced that my performance in school was only because of a "fluke". After all, the SAT had predicted I would do poorly.

By the time I had finished the first semester of college, my parents had run out of money, battling this messy divorce, and so I was left to my own resources. I diligently found grants, work study programs, and scholarships, and applied for all. Not only did I complete college, using my own resources, I was able to pay for college, borrowing less than $1000.00, for the six years of schooling.

I might add that I graduated with an undergraduate degree from a

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