Stanley H. Kaplan, Test-Prep Entrepreneur, Dies at 90
AUGUST 25, 2009 TAGS:
According to the official corporate biography of Stanley H. Kaplan, the founder of the first nation-wide standardized test tutoring company, Kaplan began tutoring students professionally after he believed he was discriminated against when applying for medical school.
In 1937, near the end of his college career, Mr. Kaplan applied to all five New York-area medical schools, but was rejected by every one. Believing that his working-class, Jewish, public-school background had hurt him, he longed for a way to demonstrate that he was equal to the task. At the time, no standardized admissions test for medical school existed. The experience instilled in him an appreciation for tests that could level the playing field, measuring students by their talents rather than their heritage.
How times have changed. First of all, there is a test for aspiring medical students, the MCAT. Secondly, the contention that standardized testing offers a level playing field, that they measure students based on their merits rather than their family background is perennially challenged.
When Kaplan started tutoring and instructing students in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (now called the Scholastic Achievement Test or SAT) he had to fight against the College Entrance Examination Board, which maintained that instruction was of no use. These days, the SAT is under attack because of how successful the test-prep industry has become. Kaplan, who died on Sunday at the age 90, was one of the industy’s earliest entrepreneurs.
Opponents of standardized testing maintain that students from privileged backgrounds who are privy to test-taking instruction that Kaplan, The Princeton Review, Test Masters and a host of smaller companies offer have an unfair advantage over those students who cannot afford the $3000 plus tuition.
But Kaplan was never a victim of his own success. He sold his company in 1984 to the Washington Post Co., remaining on the board for a few years thereafter. And those who argue that the rich get a leg up in the fight for college and graduate school admission rarely blame the industry.
In fact, the controversy over standardized testing and the measures that some colleges have enacted to correct the influence of family wealth on test scores (a few colleges and universities no longer require the SAT for admissions) speaks to how successful Kaplan’s models are.
Students are not only drilled on the knowledge required to take the test, but also on how to be better test takers: how to predict what the College Board expects a test taker to think, how to guess better, in some senses, how to game the system.
These strategies are all legitimate tools to achieve higher scores, but an oft-repeated mantra of a Kaplan class, “The SAT doesn’t test how smart you are. It tests how good you are at the SAT,” supports the claim that the SAT is an inaccurate measure of a student’s ability. Furthermore, does the pressure on colleges and universities to admit only high scorers contribute to the possible discrimination against qualified applicants who might not have the means to attend prep-classes?
Stanley Kaplan, denied his dreams of becoming a doctor, certainly changed the educational system that stymied him. Whether the industry he spawned is a good thing for higher education or not will continue to be debated.
Now, who’s ready for a couple sentence completions?
1) Because King Philip's desire to make Spain the dominant power in sixteenth-century Europe ran counter to Queen Elizabeth's insistence on autonomy for England, ------- was -------.
(A) reconciliation . . assured
(B) warfare . . avoidable
(C) ruination . . impossible
(D) conflict . . inevitable
(E) diplomacy . . simple
2) The novel's protagonist, a pearl diver, naïvely expects that the buyers will compete among themselves to pay him the best price for his pearl, but instead they ------- to ------- him.
(A) venture . . reward
(B) pretend . . praise
(C) conspire . . reimburse
(D) refuse . . cheat
(E) collude . . swindle
--
Official Biography from Kaplan.com
In 1937, near the end of his college career, Mr. Kaplan applied to all five New York-area medical schools, but was rejected by every one. Believing that his working-class, Jewish, public-school background had hurt him, he longed for a way to demonstrate that he was equal to the task. At the time, no standardized admissions test for medical school existed. The experience instilled in him an appreciation for tests that could level the playing field, measuring students by their talents rather than their heritage.How times have changed. First of all, there is a test for aspiring medical students, the MCAT. Secondly, the contention that standardized testing offers a level playing field, that they measure students based on their merits rather than their family background is perennially challenged.
When Kaplan started tutoring and instructing students in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (now called the Scholastic Achievement Test or SAT) he had to fight against the College Entrance Examination Board, which maintained that instruction was of no use. These days, the SAT is under attack because of how successful the test-prep industry has become. Kaplan, who died on Sunday at the age 90, was one of the industy’s earliest entrepreneurs.
Opponents of standardized testing maintain that students from privileged backgrounds who are privy to test-taking instruction that Kaplan, The Princeton Review, Test Masters and a host of smaller companies offer have an unfair advantage over those students who cannot afford the $3000 plus tuition.
But Kaplan was never a victim of his own success. He sold his company in 1984 to the Washington Post Co., remaining on the board for a few years thereafter. And those who argue that the rich get a leg up in the fight for college and graduate school admission rarely blame the industry.
In fact, the controversy over standardized testing and the measures that some colleges have enacted to correct the influence of family wealth on test scores (a few colleges and universities no longer require the SAT for admissions) speaks to how successful Kaplan’s models are.
Students are not only drilled on the knowledge required to take the test, but also on how to be better test takers: how to predict what the College Board expects a test taker to think, how to guess better, in some senses, how to game the system.
These strategies are all legitimate tools to achieve higher scores, but an oft-repeated mantra of a Kaplan class, “The SAT doesn’t test how smart you are. It tests how good you are at the SAT,” supports the claim that the SAT is an inaccurate measure of a student’s ability. Furthermore, does the pressure on colleges and universities to admit only high scorers contribute to the possible discrimination against qualified applicants who might not have the means to attend prep-classes?
Stanley Kaplan, denied his dreams of becoming a doctor, certainly changed the educational system that stymied him. Whether the industry he spawned is a good thing for higher education or not will continue to be debated.
Now, who’s ready for a couple sentence completions?
1) Because King Philip's desire to make Spain the dominant power in sixteenth-century Europe ran counter to Queen Elizabeth's insistence on autonomy for England, ------- was -------.
(A) reconciliation . . assured
(B) warfare . . avoidable
(C) ruination . . impossible
(D) conflict . . inevitable
(E) diplomacy . . simple
2) The novel's protagonist, a pearl diver, naïvely expects that the buyers will compete among themselves to pay him the best price for his pearl, but instead they ------- to ------- him.
(A) venture . . reward
(B) pretend . . praise
(C) conspire . . reimburse
(D) refuse . . cheat
(E) collude . . swindle
--
Official Biography from Kaplan.com
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