High Life: A WEEKLY FORUM FOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS : SAT Board Weighs Aptness of Test Name

The Scholastic Aptitude Test may be undergoing a name change as the College Board in New York considers whether to excise the word aptitude from the most famous test in America.

Every year, about 1.5 million high school students spend three dreaded hours wrestling with the SAT. It is supposed to predict how well they will fare in college and keeps many from getting into the schools of their choice.

But now, after decades of benign acceptance, the word aptitude has fallen into disfavor. “Aptitude” implies raw intelligence--or lack thereof. And, some test officials now worry that may be too sensitive a claim to make, especially for a test already besieged by criticism that it is biased against minorities.

College Board spokesman Robert C. Seaver said names under consideration range from the subtle Scholastic Achievement Test to the mouthful: Student Assessments for Transition. There also is the slightly puzzling Student Attainment Test.

If the name is changed, it is likely to happen in the next few months, accompanying a long-awaited redesign of the test.

At the Manhattan headquarters of the College Board, which represents more than 3,000 colleges and education groups, the name search has been kept quiet, so outsiders have not had a chance to participate. But the last thing critics of the test want is to allow a cosmetic name change to mask alleged bias problems with the test.

Women, for instance, consistently have scored lower than men on certain parts of the SAT, but then they go on to get better college grades, Schaeffer said. Likewise, many minority groups have said the test questions favor white students. The controversy has contributed to a growing movement among colleges to stop requiring the SAT for admittance.

A newly designed SAT--by whatever name--is to debut in early 1994. It will allow students to use a calculator and require for the first time that students come up with their own answers, rather than choose among several given options.