Generation Lost: Losing Our Voice

If you're a teenager or a young adult right now, you probably no longer actively use your facebook account.

You probably understand the sentiment behind the statements "asdfghjkl," "I can't" and "too many feels."

You understand what the tweet "blueberry muffins >>>" means.

You probably have a tumblr account and know that you can tell how somebody is feeling by the way their blog looks.

You most likely know how to express your every emotion through reblogging and creating gifs and memes.

You spend hours a day, scrolling down your dashboard on tumblr or twitter or youtube. You watch videos, look at pictures, and read things that you like and appreciate. You enjoy them silently. You repost them if you want your followers to enjoy them too. You feel like these people that you've never even met know you better than your best friend does. You know how to say what you need to say using little or no words at all.

We've adapted.

Our parents grew up in a world where face-to-face or phone calls were the only way to talk to each other. (Unless you wanted to send snail mail, which probably wont still be an option for very long.) Then the internet was invented and everything changed. People discovered IM, email, and how easy it was to say whatever you wanted to say when you were hiding behind a computer screen. Then there were cell phones. With texting capabilities. Suddenly, text communication was portable and actual phone conversations had started to lose their allure.

And then there was Facebook. We discovered that we could see, hear, and say everything and anything we wanted to with our group of friends and even enemies without ever having to leave our bedroom. You could type long winded rants and make  Facebook note. You could tell everyone that funny thing that happened to you at the mall in your status update. All at one time without ever having to move more than your fingers. In person/phone conversations went permanently out the window.

It's been that way for years now. We don't talk anymore. I mean...I see it happen all the time where people who never ever talk in person develop deep relationships over texts and twitter. They text and tweet day and night and tell each other "everything." Yet when they pass by each other in the halls they don't even glance up. Most likely because they have no idea how to speak face to face. It would be awkward and possibly messy and you don't have time to plan what you're going to say next.

Adults argue that's not a real relationship. We challenge them to define real.

Now I can't say that I view all of that as completely bad. It's how I've grown up. I have friends who I text more than I physically speak to. The thing that bothers me is that it's showing no signs of stopping. 

As a mentioned earlier, this is no longer the age of facebook. Facebook was merely a stepping stone on the path to something else. Something much different.

It's all about visuals. Pictures of places and people and things that describe our moods or desires. Picture with a few words on them, short statements, or internet lingo (memes.) Pictures that move and show a brief moment in time that we find relate able or the perfect expression of our feelings at that moment (animated gifs, usually from movies and tv shows.)

Great right? We've gone back to pictograms. High-tech, HD, moving pictograms for sure, but still. It seems like we're going backwards almost. At first I thought it was really cool during one of those "too many feels moments" when I couldn't describe how I was feeling so I reblogged something. And then it became addictive and now I do it all the time.

So what's the big deal right? It's just another means of communication!

No.

Because those gifs and memes are pictures of OTHER PEOPLE dealing with the things we are dealing with. They are words of OTHERS who have gone through the stuff we are beginning to deal with. So by communicating via tumblr we're letting others speak for us instead of speaking ourselves.

As this continues and is taken to greater and greater extremes (as everything always does) what if we begin using this as our primary means of communication. 


What's gonna happen when somebody asks me something and instead of words coming to mind, I think of a gif of somebody I saw the other day. And because of that I just can't think of to SAY so I find that gif and show them. And then they show me a meme in response. And we both nod in silent appreciation and we understand each other.

What's going to happen when we forget how to speak?

My Testimony

When I was around 8 years old, I "accepted Christ" and was officially "saved." I can remember that day clearly because it was probably the most anti-climatic experience of my life. I guess one day I was tired of being left out of this spiritual existence that all the adults were always going on about and I decided it was time. So I knelt down, said the typical rehearsed "I'm a sinner and please Lord take my sin away" blah blah blah prayer and that was that.

Absolutely nothing changed. No angels descended from heaven to congratulate me. I wasn't suddenly enlightened with all of this information about God and love and how to be a good Christian. I didn't even feel any different. I didn't understand. What did I do wrong? This is what I had seen and heard about. This is what those alter calls at church were about. You go and kneel before God and accept Him and then everything feels better and more wonderful than before.

I was so scared. Something must be wrong with me, I decided. I had always been taught that when you're saved you know it and you don't have any doubts. So therefore, I must not be saved. Every single night for a long time I prayed the same prayer before I went to sleep hoping I would way up one morning and feel like a Christian.

"Dear heavenly Father, I know I'm a sinner and I believe in you and please forgive me for the things that I've done wrong. Amen."

I thought maybe if I went to the front of the church and knelt down and prayed it would work. But I was too afraid of what my parents would say about that. I thought they would ask me what I was doing and yell and make fun of me so I never did.

I just kept saying that same prayer every night. Hoping that it would work. Hoping that if something were to happen to me that I would be saved and I would go to heaven.  I was terrified that I would never be able to be a true Christian but even more afraid to tell anybody how I was feeling. 

There was one day when I was very upset. I felt lonely, I felt lost, and I cried to God to please just take the pain that I was feeling away because I didn't know how to handle it on my own. And it went away. Just like that. Which, you know, was pretty darn surprising to me. So I was saved!

In hindsight, of course, I was saved all along. I was saved from the very first moment in my life that I believed in Jesus Christ. Now I don't know at what point exactly that was...but it was before the age of 8 when I recited a prayer someone wrote for a gospel tract. God was with me that entire time. And I just didn't realize it because I had never really tried to talk to Him before. I was so worried about this salvation business and doing it wrong that I had never thought to just "be still and know."  I didn't think He would listen to me until I was "saved." I didn't think He would be around until then. I also didn't think He would listen to me if it was about something stupid. Or what if I wasn't supposed to be saved? What if I was one of those people who He already knew was going to hell so he wasn't even going to bother.

These are the kind of doubts that kept me up at night. For a really long time. And it's sad because Christianity is not supposed to be like that. I'm not blaming anyone...but the reason I felt that way was because salvation was not explained to me correctly. It scared me and confused me. It seemed like something children couldn't understand, although we were supposed to. It was so much pressure and politics. I didn't even want to talk to my parents about it because I felt stupid.

8 year old me was confused and terrified by religion.

17 year old me is confident and fulfilled by my relationship with Jesus Christ.

Don't let religion get in the way of your relationship with God. If you know and believe that Jesus is your Savior, you're saved. If you feel His presence in your life, you're saved. You don't need to kneel before the alter or recite a prayer. You don't need to have this eye-opening experience in the moment of acceptance. If you know that you can't do it on your own and you want to know Jesus in your heart, all you have to do is believe. He's already there. God is always there. All you have to do is let Him in.

I know that I am saved not because I am a "perfect Christian." Not because I never do anything wrong. But because God is there for me when I need him. Because I can see him in my life, in the people around me, and in the beauty of the things that He has created. I can feel Him in my heart comforting and guiding me. Have I pushed Him away. Ha. Yes. Yes I have. I've ignored Him and I've been let astray. But He is always there.

Because He promised in Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee."

That's God's word completely untouched and untainted by the politics of men and their religion. And there's nothing terrifying about that.

Straight from God Himself

If you don't know what to do to be saved/if you're wondering if you "did it right":

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." ~ John 3:16

"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:" ~ Ephesians 2:8

If you feel like you're too unimportant/why would God care about you and your problems: 

"And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?" ~ Luke 15:3-4

"Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." Matthew 10:29-31

If you don't know how you can make it through life. If you're terrified, lost, confused, helpless...remember that with God all things are possible. You can't do it alone, but you are NOT alone. And with if God is for us, who can stand against us? My personal favorite John 16:33: 

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

Not Knowing

I always have a plan.

I always have multiple plans, actually. Plan A, Plan B, Plan C...when the situation calls for it the list can go all the way down to Plan Z. And if all of those plans fail, I know how to keep my cool if everything comes crumbling down on top and me and I have to come up with something new. I've done it a million times before and even in the worst situations I have ever faced (friend drama, parents angry with me, having to regain trust after a serious set back) I have never felt so overwhelmed that I didn't know what I was going to do or say next.

And here I am, 17 years old, a brand new year just started, my plans seem to be failing left and right, and I don't know what to do. It seems to me that all that elementary/middle/high school planning and scheming I have always prided myself in being so good at means nothing in the real world. I feel so overwhelmed with talk about car insurance and tuition and grants and loans and health care and residency and credits and transfer eligibility and competitive admissions and getting a job and saving money and what I want to be when I grow up.

Honestly, that phrase used to be so exciting and fun and up until yesterday I thought I knew. But then I realized that I am grown up. And I don't have time anymore to jump back and forth between dreaming of being an astronaut or president of the United States.

What I'm basically saying is...I know what I want to be. But are my dreams and plans still that of the little girl who watches Cinderella and decides she wants to be a princess?

I've always known...since I was old enough to scribble words on a piece of paper...that I wanted to have a career one day that involved writing and creatively coming up with something. It wasn't until recently (two or three years ago) that I realized my passion involved film. Expressing my words and ideas through something that you can see. And since then, I've been open to exploring any aspect of that. Screenwriting, directing, producing, reading works and adapting them, making short films....there are so many possibilities. And getting involved with these things excites me SO incredibly much.

But then I think about how competitive it is. And how unlikely it is that I'd be able to break into the industry. And how hard it would be to get into one of the great film schools. But none of that bothers me as much as the money. I can take competition and I can work my butt off to gain recognition. But I can't come up with money I don't have. Film degrees are so specialized that only certain (mostly top-tier schools) offer them.

No matter how badly I want this, no amount of As in community college are going to get me the money I would need to pursue film without getting myself into serious debt. And then there's after school. Would I be able to get a job? Or would those 4 years have been a waste of time and money pursuing something that I should've left as a silly hobby?

There are so many easier things that I could go for just about anywhere. They would still involve writing. I'm good at writing. I could go for journalism. Communications. Marketing. I could get a 4 year and a way better shot at a good paying job. It would cost me so much less. It would be less stressful. But it's not what I want.

Then again...5 years ago I wanted to be a TV actress. Shortly after that, I wanted to be a famous pop singer. How do I know if this isn't just another one of those useless dreams?

haha, what if film is just one of those degrees for the born-into-money rich kids who have nothing better to do with their time?

I'm not giving up. No way. Not until I KNOW what I should do. I don't want to quit just because it's hard but at the same time I don't want to bang my head against the wall over and over again until one day I wake up and realize that it was the wrong path the whole time.

It's the not knowing that's killer though. That gives me headaches and thoughts that keep me up at night and flood my mind in moments when I should be enjoying myself.

How do I know? How do I know...

(At times like this, this song takes my pounding headache from a painful 10 down to a bearable 4.)

Falling

The way I see it, there are 3 ways you can end up falling.

1. Someone pushes you.

2. You trip.

3. You jump.

Lately, I've felt like I've been in a perpetual state of falling. It's my own fault, I know. I'd like to say I'm constantly being pushed by mean hateful backstabbers, but that's not true. I'd like to say it's an accidental stumble that I'll learn from but that's not true either. The truth is...I'm an all or nothing kind of person. So when I meet someone that I like, I jump and I expect them to catch me. (just some statistics here: 99.9% of the time they don't.)

I don't blindly jump either. I know these people, these situations, fairly well. I have already estimated what the outcome with be and usually I know deep down inside that it wont go anywhere and it wont end well. But there's always that .1% chance that it will work and it will end well. So that's what I hold on to.

I take a leap of faith. Sadly, I always put my faith in the wrong people. Not that leaps of faith are bad, because they're not. I mean, I'm a religious person, believing in God is purely faith and so far He's never let me down. But apparently people are not as reliable. Not at all. 


Long story short: I've fallen. Yet again. Actually, I'm still falling at this very moment. Deeper and deeper and deeper into a hole I'll have to climb out of and probably fall right back into.

The worst part is I KNOW WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT. It's so simple. All I have to do is stop. Stop doing what I'm doing and WALK AWAY. But that's the easy part. The hard part is wanting to. And despite all the stupid stupid problems jumping off the edge of this god-forsaken cliff is causing me, I don't want to stop it. I don't want to figure out a way to stop falling. And if I could go back in time and remake the decision to jump in the first place, I would.

What's wrong with me? Why do I always fall for the people who treat me like crap? Better question: why do I want to continue to be with these people? Do I like being sad?

This is probably the most useless thing I've ever written because I don't have any answers, or advice, or anything for that matter. All I have is questions, and thoughts, and feelings that I don't understand...

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Dear friend,

"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."

Have you ever had one of those moments? When you're with your friends and all of a sudden you have this weird almost out of body experience and you're looking down on yourself thinking, "I'm going to remember this for as long as I live." It's the ultimate feeling of being young and free, having no responsibilities, and for just one moment in time feeling  like you could live forever.

That's why I love this book.

I've heard so many people critisize The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Mostly, they talk about how Charlie was such a wimp because he cried all the time and he never knew what was going on in the world and how could he possibly be so naive and childish and so unprepared for the world?

That's what makes it so realistic.

I'll admit, most 16 year old guys aren't going to go around crying about every little thing that goes wrong, but cut Charlie some slack. He obviously has some deep rooted emotional issues that come from some things that happened to him as a kid. Thankfully, not all of us have gone through anything similar to what Charlie went through, but then again, some of us have had it much worse than he did. Which is why the brilliant author, Stephen Chbosky, wrote this:

"I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I wont tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have."

He knew there would be people out there that would say, "Well Charlie is such a wimpy unrealistic guy character," and then when they find out that he had some bad things happen to him they would say, "Well Charlie is a character with big problems. I can't relate to that." Bullcrap. We ALL have some kind of problem, big or small. We've all felt upset, sad, lonely, we've all had those days when we've wanted to just cry about everything, but maybe we're just better at holding it in than Charlie. The point is, it doesn't matter. We all have what we have. Good or bad.

The most realistic part comes from Charlie's naivety. Entering high school and throughout high school, we're all pretty darn stupid. We talk about things we don't know about and we say things we don't mean. Just because we might know a term does not mean we know what it means. That's the thing. Everyone thinks they're so darn cool that they wont admit that they're just as lost and confused as Charlie. Charlie doesn't think he's cool so he doesn't have that problem. He actually has something most of us lack, complete honesty.

The second reason why people are so critical of this book is because of its subject matter. No, you wouldn't want your ten year old sister to read it. But for the age group it's targeted at (which is uh, by the way, adults) it's not inappropriate. Because the subject matter deals with teenagers, they're the ones who have been reading it the most. Still, the subjects it deals with is nothing we haven't seen on the most recent season of Degrassi. Of course, it was on the list of books that should be banned a few years back for anti-family, drugs, homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited to age group

Okay there. Anti-family? Um, no Charlie's family isn't perfect. But he loves his family. And his family sticks together through all of their difficult situations. And ultimately, that's what helps them all keep going. Drugs? So what Charlie smokes cigarettes and pot and takes LSD and has hallucinations. I was aware of all of that before I read this book. Like I said, Degrassi. Or that little thing called the real world that we all live in. Homosexuality? So his friend is gay and has a gay relationship. YES GAY PEOPLE EXIST. They explore homosexuality and the confusion that many high school kids feel about that topic. I don't see the problem. Offensive language? Are they for real? Most kids probably hear that same language in their own houses and if not there at school every day. Or even walking down an aisle in WalMart for heaven's sake. I'm not even going to get into religious viewpoint because the book didn't, it was not sexually explicit, and suicide is not a new concept to me.

My point is, this book covers just about every thing you struggle with as a young adult. We see it through the eyes of Charlie, who is just trying to figure it all out like the rest of us. That's why it gets through to us. Because we all feel like Charlie sometimes. Lost. Friendless. Alone. Sad. Confused. In love. Stupid. When I was reading, all I did was feel and understand. I cried and laughed and cried again. And felt some more.

Especially when it came to Charlie's love for Sam. He says over and over how he didn't want to love her like he did. He tried not to love her. But he just couldn't help what he felt. And that poem he read for Patrick at the Secret Santa Party. And his friend Michael committing suicide. And his sister having so many bad boyfriends all the time. And Charlie kissing Sam instead of Mary Elizabeth. And his recounting of when his family watched the last episode of MASH together. Oh my goodness, it's too much.

If you haven't read this book yet, you should. Just so you can feel and understand like I did and like so many other people did. I was going to end this blog post with my favorite quotes/thoughts/paragraphs from the book, but the list got too long and I've decided to make another post entirely devoted to that because it's just that good.

Now if only the movie was coming to a select theater near me. *sigh* That's what I get for living in the South.

Love always,
Leah

Back to School: So Much To Do, So Little Time

So I took a summertime blogging hiatus. I just, ya know, wanted to become one with nature and spend more time outdoors and away from screens. And I personally felt like this blog was something I needed to reflect on for a while and...

JK. It was totally not intentional. My goal was to write at least one blog post a month for a year. AT LEAST! And here I am in September, three months since the last time I wrote anything for my blog. It's not entirely my fault though! A million amazing things have happened this summer (choir tour with Crossflame, vacationing at Tybee Island, visiting my best friend Beca in Virginia among them) and I didn't seem to have any time to do anything else.

Alright, that's another lie. I had pleeeenty of time for Facebook and YouTube and all day marathons of Gossip Girl and Lost. And then when a blog idea popped into my mind I was too tired or on to something else or going to see a movie or working. Time just flew by this past summer and I did NOT have a very good handle on it.

But now, as school has been in session for about 3 weeks now, and the rest of the normal public schoolers starter this week after Labor Day, everyone has one thing on their minds: time management. Calendars, schedule books, alarms, spreadsheets, whatever it takes for you to get done what you need to get done when it needs to get done. And it's just September. This crazy scheduling will continue until May or June, depending on your school.  So here's five tips on how to efficiently manage your time this school year, without going completely insane.

1. Get a house calendar in a central location.
This is especially important if you don't have your license yet. Have all of your activities and the activities of everyone in the house up on the calendar with times and locations. Doctor's appointments, work schedules, sports practice, choir rehearsals, birthday parties, important school events, etc. This way, at any given time, you can glance at the a calendar and know who's doing what/where/and when. If you can drive yourself places, it's still a good idea just to know where the rest of your family's going to be. If you don't have a car, it's a necessity to have the family calendar so you can plan your stuff around other people's availability.

2. Create a homework schedule.
Write down homework due dates, exam dates, and project dates. Try to plan out on a day to day basis when you're going to work on each one of these things. For example, my CIS homework is due tomorrow, so I'm going to finish that today rather than work on Western Civ. which is due on Sunday. I'll work on that, as well as my literature reaction papers, tomorrow and Saturday. MAKE SURE if you have a project due, you're making time to work on it a little bit every day. One of the worst things to do is to see a due date that's a month off and say, "I've got plenty of time!" And then have to write a 15 page research paper and a 30 slide PowerPoint presentation in one day. For exams, study the way that works best for you. But make sure you study! If studying for you is cramming the night before, then go for it! But you have to do something. Not going over the material at all before a big test is a huge mistake.

3. Go to sleep and get up at regular times every night and morning. 
This is the hardest one for me. Teenagers actually require MORE sleep than old people: 8 to 9 hours per night! So with me having to get up at 6:30 on school days, that would mean I SHOULD go to bed around 10 o' clock every night! Now you and me both know that's not going to happen (getting a TV in my room was probably the worst thing that ever happened to my sleep patterns.) BUT, I've been forcing myself to have the TV off by 12 on school nights, even if that means I can only watch one episode of Supernatural...

My nightly argument with myself:
"But Dean is so cute!"
"You'll regret it in the morning!"
"How could I ever regret watching THAT FACE?!"

Also, do NOT hit snooze on your alarm and fall asleep again! I put my alarm all the way across the room so I'm forced to get up and turn it off, and then by that time I've seen the light and I'm starting to morph back into my awake, conscious self.

4. Prioritize. 
My mom's always saying that school is more important than my job. And it is, it is... It's just that, if it came down to it I would hate having to give up making money. But on the other hand, it's a fast food job. I'm taking college courses. If I fail all of those, I might never make it any farther than a cashier, which is NOT where I want to  spend the rest of my working life. Same things go for friends. I know socializing and parties and movies and hanging out is fun, but if you're not getting school work done, that has to go too! It makes it so much easier if you just prioritize to begin with, then you'll probably never have the problem of having to give up your job or your friend time.

5. Make time for relaxation. 
Stress isn't gonna help you get anything done. So if that means taking a break from the books to go get a cup of coffee and a doughnut, do it. If that means reading a book you want to read instead of re-reading the same pages of The Iguana Tree and comprehending none of it, do it. If that means watching Charlieissocoollike and his adorable antics on YouTube for a while, do it! Take a hot shower, sing, play the piano, do yoga, whatever you like to do and whatever calms you down, do it.

And maybe when you're meditating in the lotus position, you'll realize there are enough hours in the day after all.

The SAT: A Student is Not a Test Score

Imagine that you’ve gotten pretty good grades all through high school, you know what you’d like to do as a career, and you know what college you want to attend. Then you go take the SAT. You don’t do all that well on it; in fact your score is just about average. The college you had been planning on attending wants to see your score, so you send it to them. That test score is going to be considered alongside or possibly before all your high school grades, community service hours, and admissions essays.
Suddenly, that one test score could determine whether or not you get into the school of your dreams. This is the reality for many young adults just coming out of high school. It is a ridiculous amount of significance to put on one test, especially considering the scores that you make on a test can differ from day to day. Test scores are not completely accurate for many reasons, and that is why SAT scores should not be the deciding factor when it comes to college admissions.

What is the SAT?

The SAT is something any high school senior knows about well. During your sophomore or junior year, you’ve probably taken the PSAT (the preparatory version of the SAT) at least once, looking over all the study guides and practice tests you can get your hands on, and researching all the tips and tricks for playing the odds right when it comes to the multiple choice questions. All of this is to prepare for that 3 hour and 45 minute monster of a test most everyone takes right before they graduate.
The SAT covers the following main subjects: critical reading, mathematics, and writing. The test presents three types of questions: fill-in, multiple choice, and essay.  What’s the point exactly?  According to the College Board, “The SAT has helped millions of students connect with college success and today remains the most reliable, effective measure of a student's college readiness.” If you score well on the SAT, chances are colleges will come back to your application before they’ll take another look at the student who performed a bit lower. SAT scores are also looked at when determining whether a student should receive an academic scholarship. 

The Case for Considering SAT Scores

As with all “high stakes” tests, there is considerable controversy around whether or not the SAT should be important when applying to schools. Most colleges in the United States and all Ivy League schools make it a requirement to take the SAT or a test like it. Basically, schools like to see it because it’s considered an un-biased way to compare one student to another, and a way to predict whether or not a student will succeed in college. As stated on the SAT Scores website, “Such test scores are valuable to universities as they provide an unbiased way of ranking a student’s performance compared to other applicants. Unlike your GPA, which may depend on the difficulty of your course load or the standards of your high school, SAT scores are directly comparable across students from different parts of the country.”
David Z. Hambrick, an associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University, considers the SAT a good measure of general intelligence, especially since the average gains that come from SAT preparation courses are minimal. Hambrick’s answer to the SAT validity question was straight to the point. “This debate is ultimately about intelligence and its modifiability — and the question of whether it is fair to use people’s scores on what is essentially an intelligence test to make decisions that profoundly affect their lives. If that makes us all uncomfortable, that’s just too bad.”

Why SAT Scores Are Faulty

Realistically though, we all know what goes on when some people go to take a test. Your heart is pounding, your palms are sweaty, you’ve developed a nervous tic, and your head is swimming with all the information you’ve tried cramming into it over the past 24 hours. When you sit down at that table and the timer starts, it’s safe to say that most of us are not exactly at our most intelligent. That is why the SAT is not a good judge of intelligence or preparedness for college. There are so many reasons why a test could go wrong. Maybe you’ve got a lot on your mind, you’re tired, you’re hungry, you’re extremely stressed out, or you’re just not a good test taker.
John Katzman, president and founder of the Princeton Review (an SAT prep course company), supports this view. “The SAT is a scam. It has been around for 50 years. It has never measured anything. And it continues to measure nothing. Does it measure intelligence? No. Does it predict college grades? No. Does it tell you how much you learned in high school? No. Does it predict life happiness or life success in any measure? No.”
He goes on to explain that he has found that it comes down to test taking strategies, and whether or not you test well. “There's a certain idiom to the test. There's a certain way they ask questions. There's a certain way to create wrong answers. And if you're good at that idiom, then you're going to do well on testing in general. Some people can't take tests, because they don't speak that language.”
The kids who don’t speak the test-taking language can spend the majority of their high school years fretting so much over acing the SAT that they let their school grades slip. Instead of studying for Math or English, they pour over test-taking booklets trying to learn ways to score high even when they don’t know the answers.
Some kids get so distressed that they turn to cheating. Recently, Sam Eshaghoff, a college student with the amazing talent to consistently score high on the SAT, was arrested for taking the test for other people. People were willing to pay him thousands of dollars for, as Eshaghoff put it, “saving their lives.”  In a 60 Minutes segment that aired this past January, one of the correspondents, Allison Stewart, asked what he meant by that. “I mean a kid who…no matter how much he studies is gonna totally bomb this test, by giving him an amazing score, I totally give him this like, a new lease on life. He's gonna go to a totally new college, he's gonna be bound for a totally new career and a totally new path in life.”

One Score Should Not Decide Your Future

Standardized tests like the SAT may have been created for a noble purpose, to make admissions to colleges more fair, equal, and objective, but they are not living up to what they were intended to be. Admissions boards often turn away low-scoring students full of potential while they admit high-scoring student who are completely uninitiated. More often than not, kids are being kept and discouraged from pursuing their college and career dreams because of one bad score on one test, and that should not be the case. All colleges should make tests like the SAT optional for admission, and look more at a student’s previous coursework, extracurricular activities, volunteer time, and other accomplishments when determining whether or not a student should be admitted into the university. Colleges should look at the SAT scores, and then throw them away because when it comes to the big picture, they mean next to nothing.