Daily Wisdom: Are the ACT and SAT Useless?

Former tutor John Katzman makes the case that they are:

Since then, I’ve assumed that the SAT and ACT would simply disappear as people realized just how useless they were. Yet 30 years later, we still rely on them. The College Board and ACT add over $500 million a year to the cost of applying to college. They pay their CEOs high, six-figure sums and generate $100 million in profits annually. Since the utility of the tests is largely limited to the 800,000 high-achieving students headed to selective schools, these organizations are costing each one of those students a $1,200 fee—and that’s before the additional expense of test prep.

These organizations continue to exist because they themselves are not held accountable for good college matches (32% of college freshmen will end up transferring and 41% will drop out) or for the expense and stress they manufacture. And because there is no way to judge them, people are inclined to believe The College Board when it makes breathless announcements about changes to the SAT that will supposedly make them more relevant and useful.