A Letter to the College Board by Ryan Ziskin

Dear College Board,

You claim to be a nonprofit organization, asserted in your mission statement. In that,

you also claim that you are “committed to excellence and equity in education. ” The mission

of your company is to provide fair education to all, yet I have to pay an unrealistic amount for

exams that I’m not even sure I will pass. Your organization is gatekeeping higher education:

you have monopolized the college preparation and application process, you have ruined

learning for thousands of students around the world, and you have placed a price tag on our

future.

Let’s consider my situation as a high school junior: I am currently taking AP Lang, AP

U.S. History, and AP Calc BC. If I want to take the exams in May, I need to pay $99 for each,

meaning a total of $297 for only three courses. Now let’s look at my high school experience in

totality. By the end of my senior year I will have taken thirteen AP exams. This means that I

will have had to pay around $1287 for just tests, which is a lot of money. Yes, this is a step

down from the high cost of tuition, but with the competitiveness of college applications these

days, you need to take AP classes to have a chance at a top school, so it is understandable to

request that the price be decreased. You claim to provide equal educational opportunities for

all, but if I want to challenge myself academically, the cost reaches into the thousands.

That isn’t even the end of it. According to College Vine, a website that offers

insightful information about college applications, the average student applies to ten colleges,

and it costs $15 to send your AP scores to each. If I were to apply to 10 schools like the

average student, that means that I spend an additional $150 on my score reports, bringing the

total up to $1437. This doesn’t even begin to include application fees that are specific to

individual colleges and adds yet another cost to the college application process.

Let’s consider a scenario: Iin May, I get a 2 on my AP U.S. History Exam and decide I

don’t want to send that score on my report to the colleges I’m applying to so that I can get

the best possible chances at admission. If I want to leave this score out of my application, the

to $1537.

Advanced Placement fees don’t even begin to cover the influence that the College

Board has on education. The newly-administered Pre-AP curriculum for high schools comes at

an annual charge of $3000 per district. $3000 that schools have to pay each year, for one

each class that ends up getting restricted to a curriculum in a greedy effort to build up the

foundational skills necessary for AP classes and the SAT. I understand why this is necessary for

classes like English, as schools - including mine - are eliminating complicated texts that mimic

those featured on standardized tests such as the SAT, but at this point you are making our

whole high school experience revolve around the SAT. That is not an education. I am so

thankful that I didn’t have to take any Pre-AP classes during my time in high school so I got to

at least enjoy my classes. Let’s take a look at Pre-AP English I. The rubric for this course

outlines 4 units, each topped off with a “performance task” that specifies both genre and

length of the task, leaving only the title up to preference. That is not engaging; that is not

fun; that is not a good use of time. In the FAQ section of your website, you You might claim

that Pre-AP courses are “designed to support student success in AP, SAT, and other college

readiness indicators” (Pre-AP FAQ), but the fact that a freshman has to be studying for the

SAT is insane. Your whole high school experience should not revolve around one test, and that

one test should not be one of the most influential factors impacting your future.

On the topic of the SAT, it is an inaccurate measure of intelligence, and is

fundamentally designed so that your organization can make your money at the disadvantage

of students. Allow me to set the scene: I am a junior in high school about to take my SAT

March 24th, 2021. I am able to see what I got on my exam on April 9th. For the case of the

argument, let’s assume that I was really stressed out and didn’t do as well as I would have

hoped, getting a 1030. In this case, I would be angry at myself and want to take the next test

immediately after, which would be on May 8th, 2021. The problem with this is that the

deadline for registration for this date is April 8th, the day before I get my score from the

registration deadlines on your website. Hundreds of students in the fall of senior year

experience this issue and have to scramble to get applications in on time because of it. The

fact that score releases and registration deadlines are exactly one day apart is not a

coincidence; it is a purposeful move by your organization to make more money. Yes, most

colleges did adjust the requirements for an SAT submission to make it optional because of the

pandemic, but that doesn’t change the fact that it can be an impactful factor if you take it.

The whole concept of placing a huge part of college applications on one number is ridiculous

in and of itself, but the fact that your organization is making it even more difficult for us to

have a fighting chance is unacceptable.

Jumping back to price, it costs $46 to register for the SAT, and with the late fee that

price jumps to $75. This means that if I want to retake my SAT, I will have to pay a total of

$121 according to the situation outlined above, just to take the assessment. What if I want to

submit my scores? Well, based on your website, I need to pay $12 for each college I send it to,

and for the average student, that total amounts to $120. This means that for the SAT alone, I

will be paying $241, bringing up our running total to $1778. Your company has lost all of its

integrity to the point that it is becoming solely focused on money. On your website, you

encourage parents to make their children take the SAT at least twice because “most students

get a higher score the second time. ” This is not about education, this is about a number, a

number which plays a critical role in my future. I am not claiming that the point quoted is

invalid, but the fact of the matter is that your website recommends students take it twice

for three paragraphs, and only references the option of taking it once with one sentence.

Twenty words. That was not an “unintentional” piece of information on your website. You are

trying to bribe students into paying you money; and it’s working.

But what about those that can’t pay, what will they do? The only real option they have

are fee waivers, which make them eligible to take the SAT twice and send them to unlimited

colleges if they fit the specified criteria, including participation in the NSLP, being an orphan,

or city doesn’t offer public assistance programs? Families that need it will not receive that

help, and therefore won’t be eligible for the fee waiver and can’t get the benefits of it. Yes,

the fee waivers are a step in the right direction, but it isn’t far enough. What about the

actual studying for the SAT? Most students take practice tests and go through various

preparatory courses, myself included. These can cost upwards of $1,000 and you recommend

them. This high price on information is seen in the test scores. Families with an income of

over $200,000 have a score that is, on average, 200 points higher than those with an income

of less than $20,000. This is due to education and the inability for some families to have

access to the resources needed. The fact that this is an issue is the problem. You claim to

provide equity in education but when it comes to economics you are only in it for the money.

Your organization is placing a complete monopoly on education. Over half of all

students take the SAT. Over half of all students pay you for a test. A test that is required for

almost all colleges as a criteria for admission. A test whose influence has only just been

reduced due to a pandemic. It took a pandemic for colleges to gain some sort of

understanding of the struggles students have to go through. You are making some strides

forward, but it is not enough. You eliminated the optional essay on exams as well as the

subject tests, which is a step in the right direction. However, the decision to make AP exams

not standardized on exams but rather standardized on content is ridiculous. Students are

going to cheat, no matter what measures you put against it, but making it so that some

students take it in person and some don’t is completely unfair. Not only this, but we are in a

pandemic. My classes meet half as often as they used to, so my teachers have to move double

the speed to cover everything. I am no longer a student, I am a robot that absorbs and spits

out information. You are the reason for this. I am so hyper fixated on my future because it all

hinges on numbers: my SAT score, my AP scores, and even my family’s income. You need to

do better, not just for me, but for students everywhere.

Sincerely,