Create Equality for All Students by Allowing the SATs To Be Held
The Issue
The College Board's entire mission is to create a standard and fair means for students to gain access to higher education. Unfortunately, the College Board has repeatedly cancelled the Standard Aptitude Tests (SATs) since March 2020 denying many students the ability to take the SATs. Their actions are preventing many students access to higher education and the ability to obtain merit-based scholarships to help pay for that education. This puts many well deserving and hard working students at an unfair disadvantage which will have an impact on them for the rest of their life.
We are calling upon our elected officials, The President, US Congress, US Senate, and the US Department of Justice to step in and address this situation immediately.
ASK #1 - Require the College Board to hold the SAT exam and not cancel any tests for the remainder of the year unless a clear reason for cancellation is given for each testing location.
ASK #2 - Require the College Board to add additional tests, one test per weekend, throughout the remainder of 2020 so that students have the opportunity to take the exam.
ASK #3 - Require the College Board to allow all towns and high schools that want to hold an SAT exam to be able to do so.
BACKGROUND:
While there are many colleges and universities that have waived the need for having an SAT score, there are still some that require it. Even if a college or university waives the requirement for an SAT score, not having an SAT score is a significant disadvantage compared to those students that have a score. It could be the difference of admission into a college/university or not.
Access to merit and award based scholarships require SAT scores. That prevents well deserving and hard working students that cannot take the SAT from getting the financial assistance that they need. While steps are being taken to reevaluate how they provide scholarships, those steps will not be instituted in time to help students now.
The College Board has scheduled exams repeatedly from March 2020 through August 2020 only to cancel them last minute. In many cases, they issue refunds but only after a significant period of time has past. In some cases, they reschedule students for a future exam. In all cases, this is moot because the exams have been repeatedly canceled including the rescheduled exams.
The College Board shared their plans for providing opportunities to take the SAT back in April 2020. Since the beginning of the year they cancelled the SAT in March, April, May, June, and now August. Here is the press release from the College Board where they said they would address rescheduling those exams but have since cancelled the first of the rescheduled exams.
Their excuse for cancelling the exams is either due to the COVID-19 virus or no excuse at all. This is after the College Board took steps to ensure students safety by requiring temperature screening, social distancing, and the requirement of masks. They even provided information leading up to the examination dates about all the steps they were doing to address concerns. If they prepared, why cancel?
The College Board has also placed the blame on local testing facilities cancelling exams. While there are some situations where this has occurred, there are many situations where the College Board is just misdirecting the blame onto someone else. The fact is that there are many facilities that prepared for the exam, wanted to hold the exam, but were directed by the College Board to cancel the exam.
Faced with these challenges, many towns and schools which have students that have not been able to take the SATs have requested to hold the exam. Their goal was to guarantee students the ability to take the exam in a safe and controlled environment. Many of these requests have been denied by the College Board. Other requests were approved. Unfortunately these additional test locations and dates are only open to a select group of students creating further bias and unfairness against those students that have not been able to taken the exam.
The Issue
The College Board's entire mission is to create a standard and fair means for students to gain access to higher education. Unfortunately, the College Board has repeatedly cancelled the Standard Aptitude Tests (SATs) since March 2020 denying many students the ability to take the SATs. Their actions are preventing many students access to higher education and the ability to obtain merit-based scholarships to help pay for that education. This puts many well deserving and hard working students at an unfair disadvantage which will have an impact on them for the rest of their life.
We are calling upon our elected officials, The President, US Congress, US Senate, and the US Department of Justice to step in and address this situation immediately.
ASK #1 - Require the College Board to hold the SAT exam and not cancel any tests for the remainder of the year unless a clear reason for cancellation is given for each testing location.
ASK #2 - Require the College Board to add additional tests, one test per weekend, throughout the remainder of 2020 so that students have the opportunity to take the exam.
ASK #3 - Require the College Board to allow all towns and high schools that want to hold an SAT exam to be able to do so.
BACKGROUND:
While there are many colleges and universities that have waived the need for having an SAT score, there are still some that require it. Even if a college or university waives the requirement for an SAT score, not having an SAT score is a significant disadvantage compared to those students that have a score. It could be the difference of admission into a college/university or not.
Access to merit and award based scholarships require SAT scores. That prevents well deserving and hard working students that cannot take the SAT from getting the financial assistance that they need. While steps are being taken to reevaluate how they provide scholarships, those steps will not be instituted in time to help students now.
The College Board has scheduled exams repeatedly from March 2020 through August 2020 only to cancel them last minute. In many cases, they issue refunds but only after a significant period of time has past. In some cases, they reschedule students for a future exam. In all cases, this is moot because the exams have been repeatedly canceled including the rescheduled exams.
The College Board shared their plans for providing opportunities to take the SAT back in April 2020. Since the beginning of the year they cancelled the SAT in March, April, May, June, and now August. Here is the press release from the College Board where they said they would address rescheduling those exams but have since cancelled the first of the rescheduled exams.
Their excuse for cancelling the exams is either due to the COVID-19 virus or no excuse at all. This is after the College Board took steps to ensure students safety by requiring temperature screening, social distancing, and the requirement of masks. They even provided information leading up to the examination dates about all the steps they were doing to address concerns. If they prepared, why cancel?
The College Board has also placed the blame on local testing facilities cancelling exams. While there are some situations where this has occurred, there are many situations where the College Board is just misdirecting the blame onto someone else. The fact is that there are many facilities that prepared for the exam, wanted to hold the exam, but were directed by the College Board to cancel the exam.
Faced with these challenges, many towns and schools which have students that have not been able to take the SATs have requested to hold the exam. Their goal was to guarantee students the ability to take the exam in a safe and controlled environment. Many of these requests have been denied by the College Board. Other requests were approved. Unfortunately these additional test locations and dates are only open to a select group of students creating further bias and unfairness against those students that have not been able to taken the exam.
The Decision Makers
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Petition created on August 29, 2020