“You will not get into a nice college if you do not take any Advanced Placement classes,” or “You need a great SAT score if you want to reach your goals of getting into that school” are phrases I have encountered multiple times throughout my life, whether through media, peers, educators or overall societal conditioning. The instigator: a multi-billion U.S.“non-profit” organization, College Board.
If one has ever had to take an SAT or PSAT— required by Florida public universities — or an AP class and exam, then they have likely heard of College Board, a company built on the principles of expanding access to students toward higher education. This is done by instituting college-level coursework into high school classrooms and distributing standardized testing which, if a good score is obtained, promises students a GPA boost and admission into prestigious, accredited schools. However, to the average high schooler, like myself, aspiring to go above and beyond to get into their dream schools or obtain scholarship money to even be able to afford these schools, College Board’s vision statement to make higher education more accessible only promotes false promises to students. What do they really want? Student’s money.
As of 2022, the College Board made $1.1 billion in revenue, with its Chief Executive Officer making over $1.4 million. Yet, College Board still labels itself as a “non-profit” organization, meaning they are tax-deductible. In these terms, the College Board runs more like a monopoly — having exclusive control over a market — in the college process. To prove this, just look at the College Board’s fees. Taking an AP course, if not paid for by the school, costs $97 in the U.S., $127 for international students and $145 for those taking a specialized AP Capstone course exam. Albeit, while not costing as much as thousand-dollar college intro courses, these numbers can quickly add up to thousands without financial compensation for students. All of this is just for colleges to not even guarantee credit for some of these courses, depending on the college and the student’s major. Next, sending AP scores to colleges to confirm your credits costs $15 for each college you wish to send to.
This does not cover standardized test scores; if you are to take an SAT or PSAT, you have to pay $60 for each test you take. The glaring part of this is that students are almost forced to pay an additional $60 for every month or other month to take an SAT before they know their previous test scores, in case they believe they did poorly. For instance, if you took the SAT on Nov. 4, you would expect to have your test scores in by Nov. 17. However, if your performance on the November SAT concerned you and you want to take the Dec. 2 SAT, you would have already had to register by Nov. 2 to take it. Otherwise, students and their parents have to pay an additional $30, adding up to $90 for just one test. Further, if the college requires you to send your standardized test scores, this costs another $14 per school, or $31 for a rush report. So, if a student wants to apply to several schools, sending scores can add up to hundreds. This does not even take into account the price of application fees for schools, which are on average $30-100. Fee waivers are available, but they are very limited and hard to obtain, and international students cannot get any fee waivers at all.
One could argue that there are multiple other methods of standardized testing without having to turn to the College Board, such as the ACT. However, College Board’s monopolistic tendencies still shine through; based on the AP Microeconomics coursework definition of a monopoly, claiming one company has power over a market with little to no competition. College Board prices this in, allowing little to no market competition as many of these tests, such as the ACT, still cost the same as the SAT.
There is simply no good reason for the College Board to have students pay this much money. Between their fees for every test and score report, in addition to the overall cost of applications, there is no room for better accessibility and reduced financial cost. Rather, it makes the process even more expensive for any average middle-class student, let alone low-income students. Instead, it caters to those who have the wealth and privilege of putting in lots of money toward taking multiple tests, getting expensive esteemed SAT tutors and taking multiple AP’s, all to have a chance of getting into an $80k a year prestigious university.
It may also be noted that the SAT has a problematic past rooted in racism. Before its establishment as part of the College Board college process in 1926, the SAT, created by American Eugenist and Psychologist Carl Brigham, served as an aptitude test for the U.S. Army during World War I. These test scores placed 1.5 million soldiers in segregated units by race and test scores; the results ended up deeply biased, with black people scoring significantly less than their white counterparts. The reason? Brigham, a white supremacist, created the test to exclude people of color and minimize their intelligence. In his book, “A Study of American Intelligence,” Brigham claims that he designed the SAT to identify people of color who would “lessen” American intelligence. One could argue that the SAT changes to fit their modern context, but the New York Times’s current statistical data rejects this idea. In an Oct. 23 article, those families in the top 20 percent of income earners, mostly containing affluent white families, were seven times more likely than those in the bottom 20% to earn high scores (1300 or above).
Despite all this, the College Board has, and continues to have, an iron grip on the college applications and acceptance process. Their reputation places unrealistic expectations on students that, to lead successful lifestyles and show promise, students must abide by their standards. In reality, test scores are simply digits on a screen. They do not define a student’s success, especially if they restrict a student’s ability based on their test-taking skills. Still, College Board’s influence continues to loom over the mindsets of millions of young teenagers, teaching them that strategy and fitting into their standards is more important than a genuine interest in knowledge and learning. There is no telling if their influence will be minimized any time soon or whether they will continue to expand their far-reaching grasp on the college application market. College Board, do better.
