Phi Beta Cons

The SAT and Its Enemies

In the Weekly Standard, Andrew Ferguson has an excellent and comprehensive article on the SAT. Here’s the final graf:

Inevitably, I suppose, the demotion of the SAT and what it represents begins to carry a whiff of the same postmodernism that has overtaken the humanities in most elite colleges. We shouldn’t be surprised if it’s seeped through the ventilators and under the door jambs into the admissions office next door. An attack on the traditional notion of aptitude is also an attack on one long-standing and widely accepted notion of what higher education is for, as a place where academic excellence is pursued both for its own sake and as a preparation for life. If higher ed is not defined this way it’s hard to see what it will be defined by–beyond the whims of school presidents and progressive deans. But maybe that’s the whole idea.

John J. Miller, the national correspondent for National Review and host of its Great Books podcast, is the director of the Dow Journalism Program at Hillsdale College. He is the author of A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America.
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