The Deep-Rooted Issues of College Board
Eliot Bicknell
February 23, 2025
My SAT tutor is 70 years old, very lonely, and half-crazy. I usually get through four or five practice problems before he spirals into spiteful ranting. These verbal onslaughts are awfully repetitive, revolving almost exclusively around two things; his ex-wife and the depravity of the College Board. While it’s still unclear who was truly at fault for his divorce, he has a point about the latter. The College Board is by no means one of America’s most beloved institutions, but its power over education is often understated; it has a monopoly on our college admissions, yet it fails in many crucial aspects, measuring intelligence and college readiness through largely arbitrary and classist means.
Much like many of America’s institutions, the birth of the College Board was one drenched thoroughly in white supremacy. The SAT’s founder, Carl Brigham, was at the forefront of the eugenics movement and developed the SAT as a means of asserting the intellectual superiority of white people. He wrote in his book “A Study of American Intelligence”, that the “American Negroes, the Italians, and the Jews are genetically ineducable. It would be a waste of money to even attempt to give these morons and imbeciles a good Anglo-Saxon education.” While this rhetoric was hardly rare during the early 20th century, it exemplifies the College Board as an institution, as well as standardized testing at large: a means of maintaining the segregation of education in America. While this is no longer an overt goal of the College Board, we cannot sweep its foundation under the rug. An institution’s founding purpose is bound to influence its policy somewhat throughout the years, even if significant changes have been made since.
Additionally, the SAT disproportionately favors the wealthy and white. This is to be expected, affluence and academic performance are intrinsically correlated in America. Wealthier kids have extra resources, fewer responsibilities outside of academics, and can afford tutors and prep classes. But the SAT is not the great equalizer that many at the College Board imply it to be. It does not sift out talent and intelligence regardless of background. Instead, it tests specific concepts that are largely contingent upon the resources that particular teenagers have access to. Questions on the SAT are often completely different from the content that students have seen in school, thus requiring outside preparation, which many students just do not have access to. High test costs, both for the SAT and AP tests, add significantly to these class disparities and raise questions about the integrity of the College Board in general.
The College Board is categorized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, exempting it from income taxes and classifying it as a public-serving company. However, it consistently makes profits over 100 million dollars and pays its executives million-dollar salaries. With such high funding, you would expect the College Board to run smoothly, but this is also not the case. Inconsistent curving, exam leaks, and an overall scramble to remain relevant have made the College Board a less-than-optimal organization. The College Board masquerades as a nonprofit, using its monopoly on college admissions to make uncharacteristically high-profit margins for a nonprofit organization.
SAT scores are also not nearly as indicative of college success as they are claimed to be. A study at the University of Chicago found that standardized testing scores are not very representative of a student’s future college achievement. GPA is a much better predictor, encompassing a much more diverse multitude of skills than standardized testing can. The SAT contains a unique set of questions, the likes of which students have never seen before and will never see again. It is therefore difficult to put much stock in an SAT score as an indicator of future success, as there is no antecedent nor future application for much of the content tested.
It is not exactly that we have failed as a society to create effective aptitude tests. It is just an impossible pursuit. Intelligence is too multifaceted of a concept to be truly defined, much less measured in any truly meaningful way. That being said, the College Board is doing a particularly bad job of it. A narrow and somewhat arbitrary question set, limited subject scope, and large contingency on wealth make the SAT a generally ineffective means of testing a student’s intelligence or predicting their future success. The organization’s high profit margins are not used to solve these issues, which could be done through the funding of new, more equitable programs, or scholarships for test prep classes. Instead, they are used to line the pockets of the company’s high-ranking executives and maintain its monopoly on college admissions in America.
Boston Skaters Mourn Losses Following D.C. Plane Crash
Louisa Corbett
February 23, 2025
On Jan. 29, an American Airlines commercial plane and a Black Hawk military helicopter collided over the Potomac River. The crash left no survivors—all 60 airplane passengers, four crew members, and three helicopter operators died.
The American Airlines flight, which departed from Wichita, Kansas, was transporting numerous figure skaters, including six with ties to the Skating Club of Boston. Athletes Jinna Han and Spencer Lane were returning home from the National Development Camp, held in conjunction with the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, also in Wichita. Traveling with them were their mothers, Jin Han and Christine Lane, and coaches, two-time Olympians and 1994 World Figure Skating Championship winners, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova. Shishkova and Naumov were not only dynamic skating partners, but also a couple; they are survived by their son, Maxim Naumov, whom they coached to his spot on Team USA.
Jinna, 13, and Spencer, 16, were both highly accomplished skaters with big ambitions. Despite picking up skating only three years ago, Spencer had trained his way to one of the highest levels of youth skating in the world: the National Development Camp, which trains future Team USA skaters in world championships and the Olympics. He dedicated himself to the sport, commuting from Rhode Island to Connecticut for training—and teammates agree that his dedication is not limited to athletics, but to people: “He brought joy to everyone he came across at camp,” reported the US Figure Skating website. Jinna, too, dreamt big. “I really want to go to the Olympics…and try to get a gold medal,” she said to an NBC reporter at age ten. Her prowess on the rink is evident; at only 13 years old, she was skating at a pre-Olympic level at the National Development Camp. Jinna was also "wise beyond her years,” offering support to older and younger teammates alike. Even as a ten-year-old, Jinna was thoughtful and articulate: her responses to the interviewer’s questions demonstrate a maturity rare for children her age.
In the wake of the accident, the Skating Club of Boston community ached from its losses. Skaters Florence (Flossie) Grant, Anh Tran-Nguyen, and Merikkuka Koeppel, also connected to the skating club, shared their perspectives on the tragedy.
“We lost six of our beloved club members to the collision,” explained Tran-Nguyen. “They were the heart of our club.”
Her comments reflect the online sentiment of outpouring love for Jinna and Spencer; countless teammates and friends felt supported by them.
“Spencer and Jinna were some of the most friendly, dedicated, and supportive people [I’ve met],” said Grant. She talked of the joyful atmosphere they brought to the community.
Koeppel also mourns their deaths, holding immense respect for Spencer’s dedication.
“Remarkably, he only started [skating] a few years ago, [making his qualification for the National Development Camp] an incredible feat,” she said.
Grant, Tran-Nguyen, and Koeppel also spoke to the effect the devastation had on their club.
“The ice remained empty that day because skaters had chosen not to skate,” Tran-Nguyen said, describing an act of tender remembrance and solidarity with the victims.
“The press had been in the building all day…there was an event for all of the club the day after the plane crashed,” Grant said. “People were in tears.”
“When [you enter] the Skating Club of Boston…you are hit by the scent of hundreds of flowers that are spread across everywhere in the rink,” Koeppel said.
As the skating community tries to move onwards, Tran-Nguyen continues to grapple with how to handle the tragedy.
“I have decided,” Tran-Nguyen said, “that the best way to honor Spencer, Jinna, Vadim, and Genia’s lives is to work harder for them [and] to win nationals for them. With this shared love for our sport, we are all doing our best to move forward; I think that that is what they would want… Every time I step onto the ice now, I remind myself that I am skating for those who no longer can.”
Quotes from Grant, Koeppel, and Tran-Nguyen were provided by Jai Malhotra, Milton Measure sports reporter.
What Is the Appeal of Doomscrolling?
Chloe Kubalak
February 23, 2025
After repeatedly opening TikTok, hours after its ban was initiated on the morning of Jan. 19, I deleted the app.
The frustration of repeatedly clicking on the app, only to see the message, “Sorry, TikTok isn’t available right now,” pressured me into removing the app from my phone. Since that day, the mobile app has remained absent from U.S. app stores, causing me, and many others, to be in TikTok withdrawal for almost two and a half weeks. This doesn’t seem like an extensive amount of time, but with an app that knows you about as much as your best friend, it feels like a huge absence. Why was I angry in the first place, and why couldn’t I have just been patient and stopped clicking on the app icon?
Social media platforms such as TikTok serve as escapism from the real world for many internet users of all ages, with algorithms getting more progressive and connected to users’ interests.
The app’s For You Page (FYP) constantly provides its consumers with content that it knows the viewer will enjoy. This customized content arises from the TikTok “algorithm,” which collects data about previously watched videos and begins recycling subjects to keep users online. While this seems like an intelligent and valuable move for social media platforms to get in tune with what their patrons enjoy, entertainment has reached an extreme. Patrons spend exorbitant amounts of time on the app, consumed by content that brings about negative symptoms.
“Doomscrolling,” or “doomsurfing,” are both defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “spend[ing] excessive time online scrolling through news or other content that makes one feel sad, anxious, angry, etc.” It’s typically a mindless act, but it keeps users on the app without their realizing how quickly time is passing. Doomscrollers lose awareness of how much time they’re spending on social media without even taking in the content that they are dedicating their time to.
I believe that this phenomenon originally began and gained popularity during 2020 and 2021, the peak times of COVID-19, yet it still affects people almost four to five years later. If an app is supposed to be in tune with our emotions and provide us with what we want to see on a daily basis, why can it be so negative and impossible to ignore the lasting symptoms?
Participants of doomscrolling research and discussion boards report that they face looming thoughts related to the media they consume such as one by the user offlinebound on Reddit, “..the world is kinda ending, as we knew it.” Another user by the name of mdeleo1 writes on the same thread, “I know that collapse is inevitable, and near-term collapse is probable, but so few seem to acknowledge this in daily life...It can make you feel quite alone..” We constantly search and crave content that proves our points, and makes us realize that other people are on the same page.
People are practically addicted to seeing content that proves this point. These thoughts, as expressed by research conducted during the pandemic on behalf of the Mayo Clinic, can also be followed by procrastinating on sleep, lack of sunlight and exercise, and poor mental and social health. All of these side effects represent the detrimental effects of doom-scrolling, verging on a plea for help as users spend hours watching content that exacerbates upset or frustrated feelings. So, why do we do it? Why do we keep scrolling in search of content that is inherently negative?
Because what else is there? It’s easy to scroll. It’s easy to be sucked into short-form content on an endless loop that only slightly validates our feelings and gives us a dopamine rush in the middle of the night, keeping us awake.
While there is no adherent cure to end doomscrolling for everyone everywhere, there are some ways to begin preventing the cycle. As cliche as it may sound, we need to focus on living in the moment.
Users on a discussion thread discuss their various ways of coping with this phenomenon, or, as the title suggests, “How can I regain myself after doomscrolling?” Some users discuss setting timers to limit the amount of time spent on apps such as Instagram and TikTok, making a checklist to keep track of feelings and information gathered, and finding other hobbies or activities to participate in. User PanBerbeleck makes an important point, to firstly forgive yourself for doomscrolling.
Everyone wants to feel something, whether it is negative or positive, so when you want to stop the endless cycle of scrolling, think about why you’re doing it in the first place. What is your motivation that got you onto this app in the first place, and how can you trace back your steps?
ICE Deportation
Molly O'Brien
February 23, 2025
On Jan. 20, just hours after President Donald Trump was sworn in for his second, non-consecutive term, ten executive orders were signed by the president to capitalize on his campaign promises of mass deportations and securing the southern border.
One of President Trump’s executive orders directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), currently run by Kristi Noem (R-SD), to expand the country’s detention infrastructure and to detain everyone arrested by DHS pending their removal. Now, under the DHS’s direction, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will be able to conduct arrests in public places such as schools and churches.
ICE was established in 2003 through the merger of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the US Customs Service and remains the DHS’s main investigative agency.
Deportations are not unique to President Trump. Under the Bush administration, there was an increased focus on immigration enforcement, which led to a rise in deportations. These deportations were focused on immigrants with criminal records. During the Obama presidency, President Obama was often referred to as the “deporter-in-chief” given his administration’s high number of expulsions compared to past administrations. President Obama centered his deportation policies on people who posed a significant threat to national security or immigrants with extensive criminal convictions, who had recently crossed the border. Deportations reached a peak in 2013, with over 432,000 removals. In contrast to these administrations, the Trump administration’s policy is to target any unauthorized immigrants regardless of their economic and family ties to the United States.
President Trump’s ideas on immigration are not new to his 2024 presidential campaign. In a 2016 interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, held before his inauguration, he stated that his policy would aim to “get the people that are criminals and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, where a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country.”
The Trump administration is attempting to have ICE perform complete raids in three cities per week. The raids have been carried out in cooperation with ICE, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Federal Bureau of Investigations.
The first round of raids took place in New York City on Tuesday, Jan. 28. New York City Mayor Eric Adams (NY-D) tweeted that he would “not hesitate to partner with federal authorities to bring violent criminals to justice.”
Not all states and officials are as willing to participate in the deportation efforts. The mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, Michelle Wu (D-MA), said in an interview that the city’s officials “don’t enforce federal immigration law. Our police department takes care of criminal activity and they focus on local issues, and wherever someone breaks the law, we hold them accountable here regardless of their immigration status, which we do not ask about and we do not interact with.”
Watertown, Massachusetts Police Chief Justin Hanrahan echoed the sentiments of the Boston Mayor. He stated that the local police’s role is to “enforce local and state law, not federal law.” He went on to say that the immigration raids and deportations are what the federal agents are for and not “part of what we [local law enforcement] do.”
As of early February, over 7,300 immigrants have been deported, averaging around 900 arrests a week. President Trump has vowed to impose tariffs on any country not willing to accept their deportees.
Advocates have voiced their concerns over the deportation strategies, ratcheting up their efforts to stop the potential sweeps. In California, coalitions have formed to warn immigrant communities of potential ICE raids. Legal teams across the United States are working to try to help immigrant families fearing for their safety.
“Me-lentine’s”
Mayte Inclán Guillén
February 23, 2025
For some people, Valentine’s Day—a holiday meant to celebrate relationships—can cause more anxiety than love.
The holiday can be stressful not only for couples who feel pressured to plan a romantic activity or dinner, but also for those in “situationships” who are uncertain about whether they’ll receive anything from their crush. Many people without partners dread the day, as it reminds them of their failure to live up to society’s expectation for romance. High schoolers are particularly subject to these social pressures, feeling as though they “must” have a date or someone to spend Valentine’s Day with.
This calls into question: where did Valentine’s Day originate? The name “Valentine” refers to a Roman priest in the 3rd century who married many couples in secret because, at the time, marriage was illegal. Because of his defiance of this ban, Valentine was sentenced to death by the Emperor, but before his execution on Feb. 14, he sent a letter to his forbidden lover, signed: “From your Valentine.”
Valentine’s tradition arose from a Roman festival, Lupercalia, which was traditionally celebrated in mid-February. The festival contained rituals that represented love and fertility, including the tradition of a boy picking the name of a girl from a basket. The couple would then go on a date and, if the two caught feelings they would start a relationship.
While Valentine’s Day possesses a sweet history, it has evolved into a less sentimental display of romance and love, and now, instead, manifests in materialistic gifts. All throughout February, hearts, pastries, flowers, jewelry, and cards fill the aisles of stores, producing considerable profit for many businesses.
In spite of its promotion of materialism, the holiday celebrates all types of relationships, whether with a partner, a friend, or oneself. Singles Awareness Day (SAD) celebrates one’s self, through embracing individuality and recognizing self-worth.
I know some of us feel the need to have someone to talk to and care about, as it gives us anxiety to think about being trapped in “singlehood” forever, but who decided being single was shameful? It gives you the opportunity to appreciate your own company, get to know yourself, and grow—perhaps even creating room for someone special to enter your life. But in the time being, enjoy the memories you make, whether they’re shared or experienced on your own.
Happy Me-lentine’s day!