Our local school’s scores drop every year, and it gets blamed on “more marginal kids applied this year”.
That seems like a cop-out. Why more this year than last? and why not just test an entire class one time, to create a benchmark.
There should be some way to figure this. Does the S.A.T. company (I should know the name, but am blanking) ever try for school-wide figures. It seems like the kind of thing they would want to do.
Most likely, more teens took the test because more are planning on going to college. The reasons for that could be economic, social, or just that it’s random.
As a teenager, I can assure you that the SAT is taken very seriously. Students often spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on tutors and courses. Everyone has a different schedule, and it wouldn’t be feasible to force everyone to take the test at one time.
The College Board charges a considerable fee to take the test. They’d either have to offer the test for free and lose most of their income, or force every student to cough up a pretty hefty sum.