INTERVIEW EDGE • OCT 1993

Will the Real SAT Please Stand Up?

The acronym SAT now stands for Scholastic Assessment Test, not Scholastic Aptitude Test.

This change is a response to criticism that the SAT does not measure a person's "aptitude" for higher education. The new name is intended to reflect a measure of prior learning from 12 years of schooling.

It is interesting to note that Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft and the wealthiest person in America, got a perfect 800 score on his math SAT. Does that mean the test was a better measure of Gates' prior learning than of his aptitude for higher education? Probably true - after all, Gates dropped out of college after two years to form Microsoft.