by Deborah Coshun

Created on: June 06, 2009   Last Updated: June 13, 2009

I was the mother of one child and am now the grandmother of six grandchildren. My daughter is extremely smart and so are all of her children. Each child has been tested and put in IB Programs and gifted classes. The difference ends here! Some of the kids need motivation to excel while the others seem to just skate along. My daughter has moved in order to make sure her children were zoned for the best schools in the district. So I say Yes the SAT which is the same for all students is the only constant thing which is the same test for all students regardless of motivation or school they attend.

The colleges are looking for students that have the ability to meet the academic challenges of their college and need some form of assistance in helping with those choices. You can look at the school grades and academic involvement in school but that doesn't always give you the true value of a student academically. The SAT at least lets the college know if the student would be capable of handling their academic schedule based on knowledge.

Some kids mature more slowly and have the academic abilities but prefer to spend their youth being a hit with their peers. Fitting into the high school environment and belonging blinds some kids to the reason they are at school. Most of these kids will learn when graduation comes that they have wasted some important years that were needed to help them move forward to their next goal of college. The SAT may be the only thing that will help these students get into a good college and move forward with their goals.

The other issue that prods me to feel the need for the SAT is the fact that all schools are not equal. At a young aqe my father died and my family left a small country town and moved to the city. All of us kids were challenged to play a game of catch up when we arrived at the new school because we were so far behind the classes at our new school. Our former school hadn't offered half the programs we now had available to us and the ones we were now in were much more advanced. In later years when I became a parent I knew having your child in a good school would make a difference. Each time I was promoted at work and had to move the first thing I searched for was the best schools in the new area and then found my new residence based on the school zoned for that area.

There will always be differences in kids and the way they handle their high school years in terms of grades and involvement in the activities needed to move them ahead. The SAT helps to give all the students a level playing field when making their next move to college. The SAT doesn't hurt the ones who have stayed focused and successul in school but it does help those that have the ability and knowledge but have failed to use it to date.

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