Panel Spills 'Secrets' of SAT in Arco Forum

An audience of nearly 150 people filled the Arco Forum last night to watch a preview of the "Frontline" television documentary entitled Secrets of the SAT at an Institute of Politics event at the Kennedy School of Government.

The program consisted of a video followed by a discussion on the validity of the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) in light of social, racial and economic factors that significantly influence an individual's score.

The forum's panelists were Harvard Professor of Law Lani Guinier '71; Professor of Education and Social Policy Gary A. Orfield; Wayne Camara, a representative of The College Board, the company that administers the SAT; and Michael Chandler, the program's producer.

The forum was moderated by Bradley Professor of Government Thomas E. Patterson, acting director of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

Before the discussion began, the audience viewed the documentary, which the rest of the country will see Oct.5 PBS when it airs nationally.

The film focused on the lives of a handful of high school seniors from varied backgrounds, living in California and applying to the University of California at Berkeley.

Berkeley was selected as the college of focus because it has, as a result of a Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action, eliminated race as a factor in determining which students to accept.

The main subject of the film is J.K., a hard-working black student with high grades and demonstrated leadership who comes from an underprivileged socioeconomic background. For J.K., getting in to Berkeley seems reasonable except for one item, his significantly below-average SAT score--an 850.

The video, through interviews with a variety of experts, asks whether J.K.'s college options--and the options of students like him--should be limited by SAT scores.

Orfield, who spoke first after the film, said that the problem of below-average SAT scores among some minorities highlights a need to improve school systems where some minorities do not receive the same quality of education as students from wealthier districts.

"My belief is it is important not to look for a simple solution," he said, in reference to critics of the SAT who call for its elimination as the best way to improve educational opportunities for minorities.

Camara said that problems with the SAT, as well as the significance of the test itself, are exaggerated. He added that the SAT's are only the third ranking factor, behind grades and difficulty of classes, in the college admissions process.

"The media has overemphasized the SAT," Camara said.

Guinier, the most vocal of the panelists, maintained that the SAT should not be used at all as a determinant in college admissions.

She said that qualities such as research skills and the ability to work well with others holds far more importance than a test that, in her words, "misdefines merit as quick strategic guessing with less than perfect information."

"There is not a lot that can be told about a person from a three hour test," Guinier said.

During the question forum following the panelists' statements, one viewer suggested that the documentary posed as an example of "advocacy" against the SAT rather than "journalism."

But Kennedy School student Stacie Olivares-Howard said she thinks the documentary is right to question the merits of the SAT.

"I went to Berkeley, so this issue really resonates for me," Olivares-Howard said. "The SAT really shouldn't be used [to determine admissions]."

Two announced panelists, Abigail Thernstrom, co-author of America in Black and White: One Nation, Indivisible and Nicholas Lemann '76, author of The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy,

were unable to attend the debate.