Rui Ma(@ruima):Dumbing down of the SAT is basically evidence of the shrinkflation in the education that our kids are receiving in this country. Some colleges are obviously waking up to the fact that the SAT is still much more useful than just GPAs as a predictor of college readiness, but I think very few parents realize just how far it's been dumbed down. It's actually remarkable to me that even in this poor state, the current SAT still has value in college admissions. That means the other factors really are completely useless. And if we don't fix it, then in order for people to graduate, and in order for the business model to work, college itself is just going to get dumber and dumber. And few of us parenta are going to be any the wiser, because they're just going to put in worse and worse standards without changing the name, so we think our kids are getting something that they're not.

2026.10.29 21:32

Dumbing down of the SAT is basically evidence of the shrinkflation in the education that our kids are receiving in this country. Some colleges are obviously waking up to the fact that the SAT is still much more useful than just GPAs as a predictor of college readiness, but I think very few parents realize just how far it's been dumbed down. It's actually remarkable to me that even in this poor state, the current SAT still has value in college admissions. That means the other factors really are completely useless. And if we don't fix it, then in order for people to graduate, and in order for the business model to work, college itself is just going to get dumber and dumber. And few of us parenta are going to be any the wiser, because they're just going to put in worse and worse standards without changing the name, so we think our kids are getting something that they're not.

Jeremy Wayne Tate@JeremyTate41

2026.10.29 16:59

I am speechless. Thomas Aquinas College just dropped a study on the rigor of the new SAT. It compares the 1980/87 test with 2026. The findings should terrify every parent and teacher... Vocabulary has collapsed. Old SAT: 70.6% of questions tested vocab. New SAT: 15%. The old test forced students to know a wide range of words through analogies, antonyms, and sentence completions. The new test abandoned that. Most vocab questions now just ask students to fill in one blank from context. Reading passages also got radically shorter (average ~97 words vs 300–340). The new test uses short expository passages and hands you the necessary background knowledge inside the text. The older tests leaned much more heavily on argumentative and persuasive writing, assumed far more historical, scientific, and cultural knowledge, and penalized students who lacked it. This is a redefinition of what "college readiness" means. If you believe that kids should develop rigorous vocabulary, be capable of sustained reading, and possess background knowledge, I have bad news for you. The SAT no longer measures these. If you want a future where children can actually read difficult texts and construct complex arguments, the SAT must be replaced now. This cannot go on.