By Jeffrey Dalton

The recent decision of College Board to no longer offer SAT Subject Tests sent a shockwave through both the test preparation and college admissions communities. A long-standing institution in both, SAT Subject Tests have, for years, been considered essential components of successful college applications, most especially for prospective engineering students seeking admission to the top programs in the US. For example, education consultants would recommend those students take the exams and perform well on them to differentiate themselves from other would-be engineering applicants.

It’s worth exploring this decision in greater detail, including the rationale of College Board for making it, the original purpose of the SAT Subject Tests, and the proposed alternative for high school students interested in demonstrating their academic achievement.

Rationale

Why has College Board decided to no longer offer the SAT Subject Tests? According to their blog: “As students and colleges adapt to new realities and changes to the college admissions process, College Board is making sure our programs adapt with them. We’re making some changes to reduce demands on students.” Additionally, College Board claims that “the expanded reach of AP and its widespread availability means the Subject Tests are no longer necessary for students to show what they know.”

As stated above, this is a tumultuous time for the college admissions process, as students apply to far more institutions than they have in previous years and admissions departments modify requirements in light of Covid-19. These departments seem to be streamlining their processes as record-setting numbers of applications are sent to admissions; the SAT Subject Tests, while revelatory in certain cases, have been deemed by many institutions to be unnecessary in order to make a decision of acceptance or rejection for a given applicant. The implementation of "test-optional" policies at many colleges and universities effectively spelled the end of the SAT Subject Tests.

Furthermore, College Board’s development of the Advanced Placement program (to be discussed more below) has, deliberately or otherwise, provided an adequate replacement for the SAT Subject Tests, meaning that students won’t be lacking for an opportunity to show off their knowledge and skills on an internationally-recognized standardized exam.

Purpose

Designed as hour-long, multiple choice exams in a variety of thematic areas, SAT Subject Tests (formerly known as SAT IIs) are standardized exams in common high school subjects that demonstrate mastery over academic material. The exams were billed as leveling tests that smoothed over differences in course difficulty across high schools: do well on the SAT Subject Test, and you are prepared for college-level Physics or Math or Italian.

SAT Subjects have previously been offered in the following twenty subject areas:

• Math Level 1
• Math Level 2
• Biology E/M
• Chemistry
• Physics
• English
• U.S. History
• World History
• Spanish
• Spanish with Listening
• French
• French with Listening
• Chinese with Listening
• Italian
• German
• German with Listening
• Modern Hebrew
• Latin
• Japanese with Listening
• Korean with Listening

There never was a uniform acceptance or application of SAT Subject Tests at colleges and universities in the US. Some used the exams for placement tests, others considered the exams in the admissions process, and still others neither required the SAT Subject tests nor evaluated them at all for admissions.

In other contexts, the SAT Subject Tests have been used as alternative examinations in those particular subject areas. Furthermore, the exams have been considered as part of scholarship considerations, both through financial packages at select colleges and universities and as part of external scholarship program applications, since (as previously noted) the SAT Subject Tests provide a standardized number against which candidates could be objectively compared and ranked.

Ultimately, it could be argued that such disparity of application is at least, in small part, a cause of the decision to cancel the exams. Had there been more widespread or consistent usage, the SAT Subject Tests may have been regarded as more indispensable.

Alternative

College Board is billing the increasingly-popular suite of Advanced Placement (AP) exams as the substitute for SAT Subject Tests in admissions, placement, and college credit.

AP classes are college-level course offerings created and sponsored by College Board. Some colleges and universities award college credit for sufficient performance on the subsequent end-of-year exam. This exam, often three to four hours in length, usually consists of both multiple-choice questions and written responses. Other institutions use marks on the exam for placement in various levels of courses. In sum, AP exams are used almost analogously as the SAT Subject Tests.

Many American high schools now offer at least some AP classes, while many offer a full complement of coursework across all subject areas; students, in tandem with school administrators, can opt to take any AP exam after self-study at a participating school. This seems to be College Board’s argument: AP exams are now sufficiently widely available as to eliminate the need for the admittedly easier-to-administer SAT Subject Tests.

Conclusion

The SAT Subject Tests will be missed by some but not by others. As yet another exam that high-achieving and ambitious secondary students were effectively required to master, the SAT Subject Tests have long been seen as necessary to achieve college admissions dreams. Similar to how many students dedicate hours to SAT prep and SAT classes, a smaller group of students would do the same for SAT Subject Tests: often math and physics for engineering students, a listening test for those studying a foreign language.

Future generations of applicants to American universities will now be spared this process, to be replaced with longer, more thorough, and frankly more grueling AP exams in the same subject areas.

The upshot for international students is a bit different. SAT Subject Tests, outside of their role in the American college admissions process, have also served other functions, primarily as an internationally-recognized standardized test. As the tests are no longer offered, institutions and organizations around the world will either need to accept AP Exams as the de facto replacement or generate some other adequate substitute themselves.

AP Exams are not nearly as widely available internationally as were SAT Subject Tests, though this is similarly changing. College Board, administering the SAT exam the world over, possesses the infrastructure and supply chain to ship AP Exams everywhere it does the SAT. This accessibility, growing already, will only increase in the future. Here in Dubai and an Abu Dhabi, American curriculum schools (as well as those hosting the SAT exam) can, and often do, administer AP Exams.

The SAT Subject Tests are gone, but there remains one final test date for international students: the June SAT date. To those sitting the very last administration of the SAT Subject Tests, good luck!

- Hale Education Group