The new SAT premièred this past weekend, to an audience of 300,000 students. The new standardized test for high-schoolers comes at a time when the importance and relevance of standardized testing for academic records and the college-admissions process are under scrutiny.

A handful of colleges have moved away from standardized tests when examining incoming students. Critics of the SAT argue that standardized tests are inherently biased, favoring the affluent and white. Others maintain that the SAT has become out of touch with what students actually learn in high school. Even David Coleman, the president of the organization that administers the SAT, agrees.

“The SAT had gotten disconnected from the work of the American high school,” he said. “And frankly, we agree. It’s quite a simple idea.”

The new test from the College Board sets out to address these two fundamental critiques. The new SAT includes such updates as alterations to the words in the vocabulary section of the test. The changes are designed to reflect useful information and cut down on information that will only be needed when taking the SAT.

There are millions of dollars in an industry that depends on the superfluous information in the SAT, and this is one reason the SAT has favored the affluent in the past. SAT preparatory institutes can charge thousands of dollars a month for private tutoring lessons. When the SAT fails to reflect classroom realities and test kids on knowledge they would have otherwise not run into, those who can afford the very pricey tutoring can excel far easier than those who can’t. In addition, the College Board has partnered with the free online tutoring program Khan Academy to provide free and comprehensive test prep.

It’s important to remember that, though the College Board is a nonprofit, it isn’t improving its tests out of the kindness of its executives’ hearts. Free tutoring is aimed at increasing the number of students who take the test, which is an expensive endeavor. The SAT, and its rival the ACT, take in millions annually from students and state governments to administer and create their tests. With their relevancy being called into question, both the SAT and ACT will need to persuade students and universities that they are still important and useful in deciding the worth of incoming students.

The University of Iowa, like many schools in the central U.S. states, requires an ACT score for admission. If the ACT fails to keep its content relevant, the university should consider moving away from the ACT and toward the SAT. Whether removing these standardized tests from the admissions process leads to a more diverse incoming class has yet to be determined.

The Daily Iowan Editorial Board believes standardized tests such as the SAT and ACT are useful in admissions for now. The university should keep a close watch on the growing body of research on whether abandoning the tests would lead to more equity in the admissions process, or if the SAT will be better equipped to test students. A shift to the SAT as the required test or no required test at all could lead to a stronger assessment of incoming student ability and a stronger student body for it.