The SAT is treated as a standardized test but it, as you note, is inaccessible to many. It is not government run or organized. I've found, from teaching undergraduates, that most of the students who go to college presume that everyone takes the SATs, that it is government administered, and that it is free.
compare this to the, still far from perfect and problematic in other ways, centralized university admissions testing system in many other countries.
As you say, contrast that to my experience where everyone took University Entrance exams in their final year of school. Score over X and you have the right to go to a university. Don't score high enough? The university can still choose to admit you at their discretion.
Probably the same reason that the Federal Reserve Bank is not a government entity (they only have a meaningless government "oversight board") even though it loans all money to the US Government with interest and has never been audited.
- was created by the US government
- is ran by US government appointees, who are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate
- has to make annual reports to Congress
- returns all its profits to the US government
- describes itself as a government agency. [0]
Does the Fed have more independence than, say, the Department of Agriculture? Yes, but an independent government agency is still a government entity.
[0] "The Federal Reserve, like many other central banks, is an independent government agency..." https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/about_12799.htm
Because it's only de facto the primary method, as evidenced by MIT dropping it for a while there. They didn't need government permission to do that. Even public universities here generally have a high degree of autonomy regarding such things.
Well, I mean.. America is experimental capitalism. Why run anything government when it can be for profit and 'the market' will solve any and all issues with it?
It turns out 'the market' will skew in favor of making a small amount of people rich over actually improving the lives of anyone, but hey, that's freedom baby!
They're really precious about it though, so don't criticise this system out loud.
Do with that what you will.
Instead of funding The One True Test, the US government partially funds every test competing to be the best college placement test.
I wonder how one could codify a regulation for schools requiring entrance test to provide "reasonable" accommodations for prospective students to take it; like some parent comments mentioned not everyone can feasibly get to a testing center
Is there evidence physical access to the test center still a problem today (small or large)?
Is SAT worse than other criteria (such as extra-curriculum achievements) when looking at those poor suburbun middle of nowhere students? i.e. even in this example, did SAT actually made thing worse for those people when comparing against the alternative.
Was a long time ago now, but parents weren’t really worried about or involved in my college prep process, so I had to figure it out for myself.
It wasn’t until later I realized it would have been better to start taking the test way before graduation. To say nothing of the benefits of test prep..
Fortunately my parent did cover these costs, but I know others weren't so fortunate.
What was your area like? I grew up similarly poor but in a wealthy area and would walk several miles to a public library for early computer access, biked to school, etc.
Even then, our school offered SAT, etc.
Also note that I could drive by this time but we only had one car between my mother and I.