Dear FRONTLINE,

After watching your program tonight, I was left with a lot to think about in terms of the SATs. Ironically, Princeton Review had a free session at my school today. As a sophmore about to take the PSAT, it makes me wonder what really counts in order to get into a top college. At my school, grades are everything. I cannot say that the school lacks in anything for it's one of the best in the city. Yet, there is always this element that says your whole life is riding on your SAT score or any another standarized test. What do the tests measure? How well you take tests? In the review session today and in review books I have read, the points that are most emphasized are test taking skills and guessing. The person who gave the review session even told us that you didn't need to know much math to take the test. It's much more focused on beating the tricks of the test than in actually learning the material. So what does it take to get into an ivy league college?

Zhenni Chen

Dear FRONTLINE,

Outstanding program on the SAT, however you did not discuss a test used extensively in the midwest, the ACT. The ACT is especially important in Michigan where it is used both in the college admissions process at such schools as the University of Michigan and as part of the process in determining who gets Michigan Competitive Scholarships.

William Bernhardy
Grand Rapids, Michigan

Dear FRONTLINE,

It is unfortunate that Frontline, a usually excellent investegatory program, in large part turned the first half of this particular program into a debate on racegender-based admissions v. merit based admission. In doing this, they only interviewed the "victims" of merit-based admission; they did not interview the thousands of people passed over for admission in favor of lesser qualified individuals who happened to be of a different race. It is interesting to me that in our society we encouraged to be "color-blind" rightly so, in my opinion, yet some of the same persons espousing this belief later hypocritically reverse themselves and state that race should indeed be used as a tool to manipulate lesser qualified applicants into the limited university facilities. Let's see, who was it that asked us to judge a man not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character? That sounds fairest to me also, Mr. King. Regards to all.

bk bk

home | discussion | who got in? | interviews | the race issue | sat & test prep | history of the sat
the screening process | test score gap | getting in to berkeley | bibliography | links | video excerpt
tapes & transcripts | press | links

FRONTLINE | pbs online | wgbh