High-potential students may lose confidence and motivation, which could result in them pursuing different fields-or deciding not to apply to college altogether. Studies show that low scores discourage test takers and can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy students with a low SAT score may think themselves less capable of excelling. Nonetheless, SAT scores clearly capture important information about the academic position of the test taker it is also clear that many fewer Black and Latino or Hispanic students are college ready, especially in math. There is also evidence that test scores are a less accurate predictor of subsequent Black and Hispanic or Latino performance. While attempting to measure college-readiness, the SAT both mirrors and maintains racial inequity.
By contrast, slightly fewer white students graduated from a public high school in 2020 than in 2000, but the number of white students taking the SAT increased by 28%.īeyond the score: effects of racial math score gapsĪs our colleague Andre Perry has written, “Standardized tests are better proxies for how many opportunities a student has been afforded than they are predictors for students’ potential.” This is right. SAT participation also rose dramatically among Asian and Pacific Islander students-136% compared to a 66% increase in the number of public high school graduates. From 2000-2020, there was a 119% increase in the number of Black students taking the SAT and a 482% increase in Latino or Hispanic students, compared to a 36% and 185% increase in the number of Black and Hispanic or Latino students graduating from a public high school (reflecting, to a large extent, the increase in the size of the Hispanic population). Test score gaps shrunk by a small margin in the last two decades, but other indicators show reason for optimism: the portion of students taking the SAT rose drastically over the last two decades, outpacing the increase in the number of public high school graduates from 2000-2020. Rising SAT participation and college enrollment Still, nearly a third (31%) of white test takers scored above 600 on the math portion of the SAT, compared to just 7% of Black test takers. In 2002, the average white student’s SAT math score was 106 points higher than the average Black student’s (533 compared to 427) by 2020, the gap narrowed to 93 points. Despite a wide range of efforts to reduce inequality, the racial gap in SAT scores has scarcely narrowed during the lifetimes of the class of 2020. In 1996, the gap between the mean Black score and the mean white score was 0.91 standard deviations by 2020, the gap had narrowed to 0.79 standard deviations. The race gap in test scores is far from a new phenomenon Asian and white students consistently outperform their Black and Hispanic or Latino peers on the math section of the SAT. (This analysis builds on our earlier work on this issue from 2017, “ Race gaps in SAT scores highlight inequality and hinder upward mobility.”) We investigate SAT scores by race using the College Board’s publicly available data for over 2.1 million 2020 high school graduates, with a particular focus on the math section. In 1926, the SAT was created to give talented students, regardless of income, the chance to compete for college admission and scholarships. Nearly 100 years later, it often excludes the lower-income students it was created to help. Although the original exam was primarily aimed at economic diversity, part of its stated modern mission is to help increase racial diversity, too.īut Black and Hispanic or Latino students routinely score lower on the math section of the SAT - a likely result of generations of exclusionary housing, education, and economic policy - which too often means that, rather than reducing existing race gaps, using the test in college admissions reinforces them.
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