Applying to college during my senior year of high school was one of the most stressful times of my life. Rumors were flying about who was applying where, who had the best GPA and whose good side you should get on because they worked in the college counseling office and might sabotage your application. The whole school was a circus.

To make matters worse, I had to worry about the SAT.

Although I had done well on all of my Advanced Placement exams, my first SAT score was mediocre relative to the caliber of the schools I was applying to. I was in the top 25 percent of my high school class, and my extracurriculars were excellent, but I couldn't get into the school of my dreams because I didn't do well enough on the SAT. It was maddening.

Luckily, my parents were able to get a tutor who helped me boost my score by 200 points the second time around, and ultimately I get into Brandeis.

But where would I be without that tutor? I would have likely ended up at a state university in New York. I would still be getting a great education, but I doubt I would ever get over the bitterness of knowing that it was just one stupid test that prevented me from getting into my dream school.

Now, four years out, I still feel a panicked tightening in my chest whenever I think about the SAT. So when I read about the alleged SAT cheating ring in Great Neck, N.Y., I was incredibly sympathetic toward the six students who were recently arrested for paying Sam Eshagoff upwards of $1,500 to take the test for them.

Of course, I don't condone the cheating, but I completely understand where these students were coming from and why they did it. If I had had the nerve to ask someone to take the test for me, the news story might have been me. And perhaps this so-called cheating ring is the wake-up call we need to seriously reevaluate the SAT system.

The SAT was first introduced in 1926 in order to eliminate test bias between people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. In the first year the test was given, about 8,000 people took it, most of whom were from private schools and most of whom were applying to Smith College or Yale University. Today, well over two million students take the SAT every year, from public and private high schools alike, in order to get accepted into many different institutions.

The test was originally developed to eliminate socioeconomic test bias, but the test takers were largely homogenous. What does that mean for the SAT today, when students from almost every background imaginable are taking the exam? It's hardly possible for there not to be test bias. I was able to do very well on the SAT the second time around, but I also went to one of the best public schools in New York City, and my parents were able to pay for a private tutor. Thus, my socioeconomic status gave me an unfair advantage over my counterparts at schools that were not as well funded.

The SAT is supposed to be a baseline, a fair evaluator of intelligence that determines how prepared a student is to succeed in college. That should mean that any high school student could walk in off the street, take the test and get a score that is an accurate reflection of his intelligence. Instead, students are spending months and hundreds of dollars preparing for the SAT because an average high school education isn't good enough preparation anymore.

And some individuals who don't have the time and money to invest in SAT prep are suffering as a result.

In his op-ed in The Huffington Post, Daniel Luzer, the author of Washington Monthly's blog College Guide, explains that the falling scores on the SAT in recent years are not a reflection of a failing education system but rather a reflection of the College Board's superior advertising skills. And he's right. Rather than focusing on who is actually ready to take the SAT and go to college, the College Board, with help from high schools, pushes everyone to take the test. And inevitably, many of those students will do poorly on it. But the falling SAT scores are also a reminder that the SAT is not a fair test. As more and more students take the test because they have to in order to get into college, more and more of those students will be from lower socioeconomic classes. They will come from underfunded schools, and they will not be able to afford private tutors. As a result, they will not be able to do as well on the test.

The SAT system is designed for some students to fail for reasons that are out of their control. Standardized testing is no longer a viable or fair way to determine a student's preparedness for college. It's time for higher education to come up with something new.