Just a few years ago, the man heard a college
professor/administrator say that the only
purpose of college admission tests is simply

an arbitrary excuse for administrators to
decide inclusions and exclusions after every-
thing else. The man recalls taking the ACT

in the first semester of his high school senior
year. The test flew right out of his hands into
the highest heavens of test accomplishments.

He was prematurely proud. The man recalls
the SAT in the second semester of his senior year.
The test wiggled its way out of his hands and

buried itself under the creaky floorboards of
the test room. What he didn’t think of at the
time and what didn’t matter once the test score

pencil # 2 was placed on the desk never to be
picked up again is that the man’s dad had just
died before he took the second test. Fortunately,

the man was the beneficiary of administrators
who considered everything else before deciding
on matters of exclusion and inclusion for test

results that didn’t matter much either in the
heavens above or the floorboards beneath
anyway in the great scheme of things.

*today in 1926, the SAT was first administered.