It's been said a million times: One test cannot accurately determine a person's true ability to succeed at the collegiate level. But perhaps it needs to be said again.

In conflicting reports released by the makers of the ACT and the SAT, the testing companies both made blanket conclusions about the readiness of students for college. ACT officials claim incoming freshmen are not ready to handle college-level math and science classes. But SAT officials report math scores are the best they've been since 1967, with an average score of 519 out of 800 possible points.

Incoming undergraduates at MSU averaged a 24.2 on the ACT and a 1,131 on the SAT in 2002.

These discrepancies should teach people that standardized tests are just a sample of the range of abilities a person has - not the end-all, be-all of that person.

Standardized tests show if a person is a calm test-taker or good at comprehending written material in an allotted time. But a four-hour block of time should not be used to determine the next four years of a person's life.

There are other factors that are equally, if not more, important to judging the preparation of a person for college: Maturity, time management, stress management and performance in a classroom setting.

The types of tests chosen by students is dependent upon what test is preferred by the university of their choice.

This is not the scientific method of being able to measure the country's students as a whole because two different tests, taken by different pools of students, are being used to create those generalizations. If these two companies are going to analyze the preparedness of students, they should use the same pool of test-takers, so more accurate information is available.

College admissions are still dependent on the scores students receive on standardized tests. Hopefully, the two companies will work together to correct the discrepancies, so that students and university officials can once again put stock into the scoring system.