(Andrea was a student at Mason last year and an editor of Lasso Online. She moved to Brazil to finish her education and may return to the states to go to college.)

I don’t think the abbreviation SAT should be capitalized. Sure, it’s an abbreviation and all personal abbreviations should be capitalized, but it just isn’t right to have SAT up there with UN, WHO, NASA and MIT. It’s not promoting world peace, bringing health to all people, advancing technology, or elevating educational standards.

It’s just making the lives of numerous seventeen-year olds impossible.

What does SAT stand for again? "Sacrificial And Troublesome?" I don’t know, maybe it stands for "Seriously Annoying Test." Whatever SAT stands for, once one gets past the idea that SAT scores are all colleges look at, they don’t seem so pointless. After all, as EARJ senior Kristine said, "It doesn’t show who you are."

But let’s be honest, the SAT’s are a pain in the butt—literally! It’s tough to sit for three hours while reading exceedingly boring passages and trudging through endless math sections!

However, they are necessary. They give colleges an easy way to estimate the likelihood of the tester succeeding in college. However, the test, by no means, is capable, with those 3 or 4 numbers, of painting a flawless, complete picture of who you are and colleges know that. That is the beauty of it.

So, the next time you walk into an SAT administration think about this: After you’re done, life will go on. (What an earth-shattering thought! Note the sarcasm.) When colleges get your scores, they’ll take it into consideration, but they’ll also take into consideration other things, such as grades, extracurricular activities, special talents, stick-to-itiveness, etc. Otherwise, seniors wouldn’t have to send transcripts, fill out lengthy applications, write "personal statement" essays, and collect letters of recommendations.

Actually, if SAT scores were all admissions officers considered, we probably wouldn’t need to pay the $50 application fee. What would it pay? There wouldn’t be any humans involved in the process. The scores would go straight to a computer, which would pick the top scorers.

Though this system seems outrageous to you, consider the following. Here in Brazil, in order to be admitted to a public college, a student must take a "vestibular," an admission test that covers a variety of topics. That score is all the admissions is based on.

Plus, if a college offers 30 spots for a certain major, a tester could answer 99% of all the questions correctly, yet if there were 30 people who scored 100%, he/she would not be accepted. It’s a way of industrializing a process that would otherwise be very long and complicated.

Therefore, the next time you sit in front of that "SAT," don’t get yourself all worked up about it. Though I encourage everyone to take advantage of printed and online resources and practice for the SAT beforehand, keep in mind that it does not single-handedly determine where you’re going for college, and much less the rest of your life.

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