Is the SAT a “Wealth Test?” The Link between Educational Achievement and Socioeconomic Status

In a recent visit to the University of California, Santa Barbara, Harvard University law professor Lani Guinier drew big cheers from the students in the audience when she suggested that, in the interest of truth in advertising, the SAT should simply be called a “wealth test.” ¹ And Professor Guinier is certainly not alone in criticizing standardized admissions tests on the grounds that the resulting scores are related to the income and educational level of the test-taker’s family. Test critic Alfie Kohn recently suggested that the verbal section of the SAT, which includes some difficult vocabulary, merely measures “the size of students’ houses” (Kohn, 2001, p. B12). A University of California dean told the Los Angeles Times in 1997 that the “only thing the S.A.T. predicts well now is socioeconomic status” (Colvin, 1997, p. B2). “Call it the ‘Volvo Effect,’” said journalist Peter Sacks, claiming that “one can make a good guess about a child’s standardized test scores simply by looking at how many degrees her parents have and at what kind of car they drive” (1997, p. 27).