By Augustine Anthony
Having Nobel laureates on its list of students is certainly an honor for any institution. Not so much for the Stanford University in California.
Stanford reportedly wants Malala Yousafzai to take SAT to be eligible to apply for admission – a standardized test many see as an “obsolete” and perhaps imperfect tool to judge a student’s talent.
The fact she was nearly killed for espousing the cause of education for girls doesn’t qualify her for admission, it though made her the youngest ever Nobel laureate in 2014 at the age of 17.
That makes a little sense for people like Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, an award-winning journalist, who recently tweeted: “Stanford is apparently demanding that Malala Yousafzai take the SATs before applying, because what’s a Noble Prize, anyway?”
But, there are others who see Malala just like any other American student who does not deserve any “preferential treatment” and must take SAT before applying for college, no matter how special she is.
Malala made headlines three years ago when a Taliban militant shot her in the head when she refused to give up what she had been doing since the age of seven, speaking for the cause of girl’s education in her native country, Pakistan. For the extremists, she was guilty of disobeying the Islamic Sharia.
She not only survived the gruesome attack, she is even more adamant to finish her unfinished agenda – education for all in her motherland, the world’s 7th most populous country.
That hardly matters for Stanford which wants her to compete with an anticipated 43,000 students who will be applying for a spot in the 2016 freshman class of 2,100. If able to make it to Stanford, Malala plans to do her major in politics and philosophy and pursue a political career in Pakistan.
Thus far, SAT seems a barrier she must cross to achieve her dreams. Malala is currently studying in Birmingham in the U.K. and has long set eyes on top universities in the United States to complete her higher education.
Interestingly, all the hullabaloo about Malala taking SAT comes at a time when sinking level of average score has made people question whether the standardized test is really a reliable gauge to evaluate true worth of a student.
The average score of 1490 for the class of 2015, out of a maximum 2400, was the lowest composite score for the past decade, as calculated by a recent Washington Post report.
Citing statistics from the nation’s capital of Washington D.C., the report found that those from private schools, with many educational advantages, reached an average score above 1,800 compared with an average score of 1139 obtained by students from public schools in districts. “The public-private gap illustrate how scores correlate with wealth,” the report concluded.
Analyzing SAT is not the purpose here – it is the job of educationists. The question here is, whether a Nobel Prize winner is less worthy than those who score high in SAT, partly, if not wholly, because they could afford better education.
At least for now, SAT seems one big obstacle she must come over in order to achieve her dream of becoming Pakistan’s Prime Minister and be able to fight for girls’ rights from a strong platform.
If she ever makes it to that position, and if no other woman does that before her, Malala will be Pakistan’s only second female Prime Minister after Benazir Bhutto, who was killed by attackers said to be militants from the same Taliban militants who tried to kill Malala.
