Watering Down the SAT Weakens Meritocracy

G enerations of Americans have sat for the SAT, long the surest social escalator for talented, but overlooked, kids to win seats at the nation’s most elite universities. The SAT has been woven into the fabric of the American educational experience, serving as a common benchmark that allowed students to compete on a, relatively level, playing field to show their academic promise. Sadly, misguided DEI changes to the SAT threaten to unravel this legacy, eroding both the principle of meritocracy and what few shreds of intellectual rigor remain in our educational system.

For decades, the SAT has served as a great equalizer and standardized measure that allows students, regardless of background, to showcase their abilities and earn a place at top institutions. For elite universities, studies in 2024 show that SAT scores were 3.9 times more predictive of a student’s success than high school GPA. Admissions offices from Harvard, Yale, and Brown have even publicly acknowledged this fact, with Yale stating, “Test scores are the single largest predictor of a student’s academic performance.” Even as universities experimented with test-optional policies during the Covid-19 pandemic, the return to mandatory testing at prestigious schools signaled a recognition of the SAT’s value as a fair and objective benchmark.

The new digital SAT, now shorter, remote, and adaptive, reduces the pressure and challenge that once made it a meaningful test of academic readiness and resilience. If a student struggles in the first section, the test adjusts to become easier; if they excel, it becomes harder. This adaptive model penalizes preparedness and effort, effectively punishing those who rise to the challenge while coddling those less prepared. Such a system abandons the meritocratic ideal and rewards mediocrity over excellence, erasing the incentive to strive.

The College Board claims that 80 percent of students feel less stressed taking the new digital SAT, but isn’t the whole point of the SAT to see how students perform under pressure? The aim of the SAT is to predict “college readiness,” and handling stress is a crucial skill for success in college and beyond. By making the test easier and less stressful, we risk removing an important measure of resilience and readiness. Shielding students from challenge may feel good in the short term, but it ultimately undermines the SAT’s purpose as a true test of merit and preparation for real-world demands.

The transformation of the SAT is not just a technical change; it reflects a deeper cultural shift. The reading section, for example, now features shorter, less complex passages that mirror the brevity and superficiality of social media. Instead of engaging with the great works of literature and foundational documents that have shaped Western civilization, students are asked to interpret snippets akin to tweets or memes. In order to support those with short attention spans, and make the test “more comfortable,” this shift away from the canon of great writing diminishes students’ exposure to the complexity, nuance, and beauty of language. The new SAT is a tacit admission that we are fine with students trading in scripture and Shakespeare for the fleeting thoughts of tweets and memes.

The consequences are profound. When students are trained to skim short texts for quick answers, they lose the ability to grapple with ambiguity, parse complex syntax, and appreciate well-crafted arguments. The art of close reading, a skill essential for both academic and civic life, is lost. This trend is compounded by the fact that, in many schools, students rarely encounter lengthy, challenging texts or receive explicit instruction in grammar and syntax. As a result, they lack the foundational skills necessary to tackle complex reading passages, both on standardized tests and in real life. Persistently low reading scores in many districts may even be driving test-makers to lower the bar, perpetuating a cycle in which deep reading becomes ever rarer. We risk producing a generation of “skimmers and scanners,” adept at navigating the shallow waters of social media but unprepared for the deep thinking required by true scholarship and responsible citizenship.

Moreover, by sidelining the literary and philosophical works that form our cultural inheritance, we risk a kind of collective amnesia. The Western canon is not a relic; it is a living conversation that connects us to centuries of human thought and achievement. To abandon it is to sever our ties to the very ideas and values that have shaped our society.

Proponents of the new SAT argue that these changes make the test more inclusive. While inclusivity is a noble goal, it must not come at the expense of excellence. Lowering standards does not help disadvantaged students; it simply ensures that no one, regardless of background, is challenged to reach their full potential. Instead of diluting the test, we should enrich our schools and curriculum, giving every student the tools to engage with the best that has been thought and written.

This retreat from rigor and merit has real-world consequences. As other nations, like China, invest in cultivating resilient, intellectually formidable students, the United States risks falling behind in the global race for innovation and leadership. Shielding students from stress and challenge does not prepare them for the demands of college, the workforce, or life itself.

The new SAT is a symptom of a broader malaise: a culture increasingly satisfied with the superficial and the easy. But true education is about striving for greatness, engaging deeply with the world’s most important ideas, and preparing students not just for tests, but for meaningful lives. As the SAT becomes less demanding and more superficial, we risk stripping away one of the few remaining mechanisms that allowed deserving individuals to rise above their circumstances. If we want a society that truly rewards talent and effort, we must preserve and strengthen the tools that make upward mobility possible.

Vilda Westh Blanc is a Collegiate Associate at the Manhattan Institute, where Tim Rosenberger is a Legal Policy Fellow.