ITDS: Idiodic Testing that Determines Scholarships

416 words

Okay okay, IOWA ASSESSMENT, whatever they're called, I still hate them. Three days of 110 minutes of testing that turns you from a person with a personality into a test score.

Everybody learns at a different rate but that doesn't make them dumber than you or you any dumber than everyone else. You know what it does make you though? A normal person. These timed tests don't show that much about a person other than their ability to take a test under stressful conditions. I mean, 40 minutes is NOT enough time for me to take a math test where half of the content I haven't even covered yet. But what disturbs me about this whole thing more is the fact that your test scores will determine your future. A person is more than a test score. A person has talents outside of academics, a personality that can influence more people than maybe the kid who got a perfect score on their ITDS.

Every year since third grade, I have been told that the better you do on these te3sts, the better chance you have to getting into the college that you want. What? Why should that matter? Okay, yes I understand that colleges want smart people but can’t that be determined by the classes they take, the grades they get and even their AP scores? Shouldn’t college acceptance be more about who you are as a person instead of who you are as a standardized test score?

The same goes for the ACT and the SAT.

I’m not saying that these tests are all bad. In fact, they challenge you to push yourself as a student to excel in your schooling but as a person who can know information inside and out yet still blank on tests, especially timed ones, I have been feeling more and more stressed out about my college searching process. As a junior, I really have to start looking and over the summer I’m going to start my personal essay. I’ve already taken the ACT once and got an okay score. If I really didn’t want to, I could easily make it into UNI with the score I got but I have been conditioned to believe that the higher ACT the better chance I have… which is true, but not right.

When I apply for my colleges I want them to look at me as more than an ACT or ITDS score. I want them to look at me as ME.

~Skooogster(: