6 ms·

College Panel Calls for Less Focus on SATs

9 points by jaydub 18y ago

silencio 18y ago
Can't happen fast enough. I'm unhappy about the weight SAT (and ACT) scores are given in the application process because I will be a (junior level) transfer student and I see even less relevance of the SAT in my position when it's already fairly useless for freshmen. I find it mindboggling and frustrating to think that half the colleges I am applying to are requiring such a useless thing while the others are doing the right thing by not even caring for such a score. In college, I have taken math classes above second semester calculus. I have fulfilled basic general education requirements. I have fulfilled more than expected of a junior-level transfer student in classes related to my major. All of those credits should overwhelmingly trump what I can do in a few hours with a pencil and a calculator for something laughable in comparison. To the point that taking such a test would be unnecessary to point out what I am capable of doing: honestly, is how well I do on some trivial algebra (lazily done entirely with my ti-89) or writing going to tell you how appealing of a computer science major I will be? I'm pretty sure you can safely ignore the SAT and take a look at my classes, grades, experience and recommendations to make a better guess. And the same should apply to high school students as well. Not to say I did not do well on the last SAT exam I took (on the contrary, because the material is so basic), but why I had to spend the money and waste the time to do so in the first place just stinks. I have taken prep classes way back in high school, and I've tutored people in turn. The article is spot on when it says that students are spending time gaming the SAT. (On a slightly different sidenote, I don't think the SAT is the only cause for high school classes (at least in the US) being so focused on a small curricula, I believe that's more directly caused by NCLB and tying school performance on exams to funding. But that's a whole different rant/issue in itself.)
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  In college, I have taken math classes above second semester calculus. ... All of those [college] credits should overwhelmingly trump what I can do in a few hours with a pencil and a calculator for something laughable in comparison. Generally, the SAT is administered to high-school students, not college students. It's purpose is to predict the performance of those high-school students, if and when they are in college. The point of any test is to improve predictiveness of outcome. The SAT is a type of social test, and its purpose is to predict a certain social outcome -- student performance in college. Not to say I did not do well on the last SAT exam I took (on the contrary, because the material is so basic), but why I had to spend the money and waste the time to do so in the first place just stinks. The SAT costs less and is faster than testing via college credits. Would you test the inflation-level of tires by driving a car around and measuring its performance (efficiency, road-handling, straight-line traction, smoothness over bumps, road noise, tire-temperature-rise, etc.) because it is cheaper and easier than to "spend the money and waste the time" using a tire-pressure meter instead? The article is spot on when it says that students are spending time gaming the SAT. One way around that might be to give them working-memory and reaction-time/decision-time tests, instead. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22reaction+time%22+jensen+%22g+factor%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=%22reaction+time%22+jensen+%2... http://www.google.com/search?q=%22working+memory%22+%22g+factor%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=%22working+memory%22+%22g+fac... One of the purest tests of working memory is the Letter-Number Sequencing subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). It consists of simply reordering (in one's head) strings of random letters and numbers. http://www.google.com/search?q=wais+letter+number http://www.google.com/search?q=wais+letter+number
  - silencio 18y ago
    That is my point. I'm not a high school student. But half the colleges I am applying to for junior transfer want an SAT score. When I have already taken a whole ton of college classes, what is the point? I've been told by many people like you that it's used to predict how well someone performs in college..well, they have over two years and dozens and dozens of credits and classes to back that up for me. Yet they STILL want the score. And yes, the SAT/ACT may still serve a purpose for many students, but I believe its importance is overemphasized. Oddly enough, I would prefer something like WAIS to the SAT. Having taken it before, it's vastly more enjoyable (I also spent most of my k-12 education in a gifted school requiring a certain IQ, regardless of what that measures and how useful it is overall.)
    - DabAsteroid 18y ago
      When I have already taken a whole ton of college classes, what is the point? Did you take the SAT after you had completed a ton of college classes? [Edit: abridged]
      - silencio 18y ago
        Yup. Had no choice. The second to last time I took the SAT was a few years back when I was still in like junior high and they were offering the one out of 1600. All the schools wanting SAT scores want the new one out of 2400 now. Ergo, I needed to retake it (well, more specifically, take the newer version of the exam) for applications.
- smanek 18y ago
  If the SAT was so easy (and I agree that it is), what's the big deal? It's 3 hours of your life and costs under 50 bucks (and they waive the fee if you can show need). You didn't have to spend a huge amount of time studying or money taking prep courses. Your rant reminds me of professional programmers who get insulted when asked to do fizz-buzz during an interview. What's the big deal? It's the quickest and easiest way to weed out the riff-raff. In my experience, the ones who get insulted are usually the ones who can't do it.
  - KevinMS 18y ago
    Some people that score well on interview tests are the worst fuckuppited programmers you'd never want to work with. And some who blow it are a pleasure to work with. Those little tests don't account for documentation, architecture, scalability, readability, refactoring, etc. I don't give a damn if somebody can't come up with some little algorithm during the pressure of a test that could have easily just googled for, and also what is the best practices for that algorithm. You are probably somebody new to the industry.
    - smanek 18y ago
      Like I said, simple tests always have false positives. Of course a lot of poor coders can do fizz buzz. But, if you can't code fizz buzz in under five minutes, I guarantee you are a bad coder. It's a simple way to eliminate half your applicants. Sounds good to me.
    - silencio 18y ago
      That's exactly how I feel. Fizzbuzz and the SAT alike are to me just filling some very limited uses where they would come in handy - like if you ever DID ask fizzbuzz from an interviewee you'd at most be able to weed out people who don't know what the heck they're talking about, like some moron applying for a Java position that knows no Java. But to me the difference is that the SAT is like fizzbuzz applied to everyone regardless...if you had an interviewee that you knew in every way that fizzbuzz would be a waste of time (even that tiny amount of time) because they've proved themselves in some other way, you wouldn't ask. That's pretty much all I'm wanting. Some things are just not worth the effort because there's plenty else to see who they are and what they are capable of doing.
smanek 18y ago
In my experience, SATs are one of the few good predictors of intelligence (in a necessary-but-not-sufficient sort of way). Truth be told, the SATs aren't particularly hard so most bright people could walk in and take the test cold turkey and pull at least a 1500. Of course, there were a lot of false positives from people who took prep courses and worked their asses off (but, as a former princeton review tutor, I never saw more than a 100 point gain in any student no matter how hard they worked - and most were lucky to get 50 points). A kid whose parents had a few grand to burn on a princeton review course could boost his score from 1300 to 1350, but never to 1550. The problem with GPA/extracurriculars were that a lot of not very bright people could pull 4.0s and have good 'leadership' experience by gaming the system. And, even worse, a lot of smart people couldn't. A lot of the smartest people I know barely graduated highschool (or didn't). They saw the bullshit for what it was, and often had a knack for rubbing people the wrong way (especially at 16 - most of them can 'play the game' as adults). (Note: all my experience was with the old 1600 point SAT)
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  In my experience, SATs are one of the few good predictors of intelligence Published research agrees with this: http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2006%20Intell%20Jackson%20&%20Rushton.pdf http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2006%20Intell%2... Although the SAT is widely believed to measure mainly academic achievement, Frey and Detterman (2004) have shown that it is an excellent measure of general cognitive ability (g). For example, they found that scores on the SAT correlated highly (0.82) with g extracted from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), as it also did with g loaded mental ability tests such as the California Test of Mental Maturity (0.82), the Otis–Lennon Mental Ability Test (0.78), the Lorge–Thorndike Intelligence Test (0.79), the Differential Aptitude Test (0.78), the Henmon– Nelson Test of Mental Maturity (0.65), the Coop School and College Ability Test (0.53), and the Raven's Ad- vanced Progressive Matrices (0.48; 0.72 when corrected for restricted range).
- yummyfajitas 18y ago
  not very bright people could pull 4.0s and have good 'leadership' experience by gaming the system. Many college admins view this as a feature, not a bug. I've met a few, they tend to be that type of person themselves. It's a natural human trait to try to raise the status of people like yourself. Incidentally, I went from about 1250 to 1450 with a couple months of prep (no classes, just some books). I'd be curious if you know of good statistics out there.
DabAsteroid 18y ago
Full-text link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.htm... Commission Report .pdf: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922admissions.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922... NYT article comments: http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.html http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/09/22/edu... Excerpt from article: Mr. Fitzsimmons’s group, which was convened by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, also expresses concerns “that test scores appear to calcify differences based on class, race/ethnicity and parental educational attainment.”
markbao 18y ago
There are two major components in the theorized 66-75% of your college application decision, and that is 1) performance in high school and 2) SATs. If SATs are taken less seriously as masses of people say that it is an inaccurate prediction of intelligence, only past performance is a major factor in the admission process. And perhaps you're like me who didn't give a damn about what the school teaches, because other things seem more important, like entrepreneurship, and yet extracurriculars and character only make about 25-33% of the decision.
gamble 18y ago
Despite periodic bouts of hand-wringing like this, I doubt you'll see the SATs go away any time soon. Education is too decentralized in the US for universities to depend on high-school marks. The alternative to standardized testing is a rigorous, universal curriculum overseen by the state or federal government; otherwise, people will game the system by sending their children to whichever school marks the most generously.
- Retric 18y ago
  Collages use SAT scores because they are a better indicator of student performance than highschool GPA, or student’s involvement in outside activities etc. They might not split the population on the correct racial or economic fashion, but the simple fact is they are a strong indicator as to who will finish their freshman year. Compare the number of people who dropped out of collage with an old SAT score above 1400 to those with an SAT score below 1400 and you will see a dramatic gap.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  It's decentralized, but tightly coupled. If US News & World Report drops the SAT category for ranking colleges, you will see schools stop using the SAT overnight.
DabAsteroid 18y ago
Score-by-race table from the report .pdf (p40): http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922admissions.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922... Average SAT Composite Score by Race/Ethnic Group, 2007 African American/Black 17.0 American Indian/Alaska Native 18.9 Caucasian American/White 22.1 Hispanic 18.7 Asian American/Pacific Islander 22.6 Other/No Response 21.6 (ACT National Score Report, 2007. Retrieved from http://www.act.org/news/data07/charts/index.html http://www.act.org/news/data07/charts/index.html)
DabAsteroid 18y ago
Score-by-family-income/parental-education table (abridged) from the report .pdf (p40): http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922admissions.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922... SAT Reasoning Test Critical Math Writing Reading Family Income Less than $10,000 427 451 423 $10,000 - $20,000 453 472 446 $20,000 - $30,000 454 465 444 $30,000 - $40,000 476 485 466 $40,000 - $50,000 489 496 477 $50,000 - $60,000 497 504 486 $60,000 - $70,000 504 511 493 $70,000 - $80,000 508 516 498 $80,000 - $100,000 520 529 510 More than $100,000 544 556 537 Highest Level of Critical Math Writing Parental Education Reading No HS Diploma 421 445 418 HS Diploma 466 476 457 Associate Degree 484 492 473 Bachelor’s Degree 522 533 513 Graduate Degree 560 569 552 (College Board score report, 2007. Retrieved from http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2007/national- http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/c... report.pdf)
mdasen 18y ago
And replace it with. . .? Grades? Those inflated things? Recommendations? Wonder how long it will be before a family sues a teacher who gives a poor recommendation. HR managers already overwhelmingly provide positive feedback about former employees. Work samples? Awesome, except that you could get someone else to do it for you. Activities? Well, too many students are creating shell activities where they hold leadership positions. No meetings, no members to run against you for president, no hassle, no mess. Not that the SAT is much better considering the test-prep that goes on and the fact that the College Board no longer indicates different test conditions. Creating effective screens (both for school admissions and employers) is very difficult. You can create positive correlations between things - for example, those with higher SAT scores tend to be smarter. Doesn't mean that you don't have random idiots with high scores and smart people with low ones. But there is a positive correlation. As such, employers and schools will use that just as a life-insurance company would use the fact that you're a smoker to correlate with a greater chance of dying young. Some smokers live very long lives, but there is a positive correlation the other way.
KevinMS 18y ago
Its been shown you can actually score well on the SATs, at least a while ago when it was on paper and multiple choice, without actually having to read the questions. To me thats a failure of a test. Maybe they've fixed this bug, but here's an example. If you have a math problem like, (substituting x for actual words) x x 5 x 5 x x x And your choices are a) 5 b) 10 c) 15 d) 25 If this question is at the beginning of the test, its most likely the easiest solution, so pick 10. This is because the first questions are moved to the front because they are most easily solved by the worst test takers. These people, no matter how twisted their reasoning, most likely will come up with 10 by adding the two numbers they see, or just pick 5 because they just saw a 5 Towards the middle of the test you'd go with 25, because these are less likely, and necessarily wont be guessed by the dummies, but the people having reached this point will do something fancier like multiply the numbers together, At the end of the test, where its hardest to reach, the answer would be 15 because you are least likely to come up with that answer. This is the key to the whole hack- the answer to a difficult question cannot be accidentally guessed, otherwise, it would end up in the first questions, or just be thrown out. You see, they couldn't determine the level of difficulty of a question by reading it, they did statistically by who got it right, and how well that person did on the overall test, so if you had a question that was answered correctly by most takers who also got most of the other questions correct, and got wrong by those who didn't do well on the rest of the test, that was a "hard" question. When this was uncovered the testing company freaked out and the move to computers couldn't come fast enough for them (they administer these tests on computers yet?) Its because the test can dynamically be calibrated for the test taker and you can't use the first questions, middle questions, last questions rule.

9 points by jaydub 18y ago

Can't happen fast enough. I'm unhappy about the weight SAT (and ACT) scores are given in the application process because I will be a (junior level) transfer student and I see even less relevance of the SAT in my position when it's already fairly useless for freshmen. I find it mindboggling and frustrating to think that half the colleges I am applying to are requiring such a useless thing while the others are doing the right thing by not even caring for such a score. In college, I have taken math classes above second semester calculus. I have fulfilled basic general education requirements. I have fulfilled more than expected of a junior-level transfer student in classes related to my major. All of those credits should overwhelmingly trump what I can do in a few hours with a pencil and a calculator for something laughable in comparison. To the point that taking such a test would be unnecessary to point out what I am capable of doing: honestly, is how well I do on some trivial algebra (lazily done entirely with my ti-89) or writing going to tell you how appealing of a computer science major I will be? I'm pretty sure you can safely ignore the SAT and take a look at my classes, grades, experience and recommendations to make a better guess. And the same should apply to high school students as well. Not to say I did not do well on the last SAT exam I took (on the contrary, because the material is so basic), but why I had to spend the money and waste the time to do so in the first place just stinks. I have taken prep classes way back in high school, and I've tutored people in turn. The article is spot on when it says that students are spending time gaming the SAT. (On a slightly different sidenote, I don't think the SAT is the only cause for high school classes (at least in the US) being so focused on a small curricula, I believe that's more directly caused by NCLB and tying school performance on exams to funding. But that's a whole different rant/issue in itself.)

DabAsteroid 18y ago
In college, I have taken math classes above second semester calculus. ... All of those [college] credits should overwhelmingly trump what I can do in a few hours with a pencil and a calculator for something laughable in comparison. Generally, the SAT is administered to high-school students, not college students. It's purpose is to predict the performance of those high-school students, if and when they are in college. The point of any test is to improve predictiveness of outcome. The SAT is a type of social test, and its purpose is to predict a certain social outcome -- student performance in college. Not to say I did not do well on the last SAT exam I took (on the contrary, because the material is so basic), but why I had to spend the money and waste the time to do so in the first place just stinks. The SAT costs less and is faster than testing via college credits. Would you test the inflation-level of tires by driving a car around and measuring its performance (efficiency, road-handling, straight-line traction, smoothness over bumps, road noise, tire-temperature-rise, etc.) because it is cheaper and easier than to "spend the money and waste the time" using a tire-pressure meter instead? The article is spot on when it says that students are spending time gaming the SAT. One way around that might be to give them working-memory and reaction-time/decision-time tests, instead. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22reaction+time%22+jensen+%22g+factor%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=%22reaction+time%22+jensen+%2... http://www.google.com/search?q=%22working+memory%22+%22g+factor%22 http://www.google.com/search?q=%22working+memory%22+%22g+fac... One of the purest tests of working memory is the Letter-Number Sequencing subtest of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS). It consists of simply reordering (in one's head) strings of random letters and numbers. http://www.google.com/search?q=wais+letter+number http://www.google.com/search?q=wais+letter+number
- silencio 18y ago
  That is my point. I'm not a high school student. But half the colleges I am applying to for junior transfer want an SAT score. When I have already taken a whole ton of college classes, what is the point? I've been told by many people like you that it's used to predict how well someone performs in college..well, they have over two years and dozens and dozens of credits and classes to back that up for me. Yet they STILL want the score. And yes, the SAT/ACT may still serve a purpose for many students, but I believe its importance is overemphasized. Oddly enough, I would prefer something like WAIS to the SAT. Having taken it before, it's vastly more enjoyable (I also spent most of my k-12 education in a gifted school requiring a certain IQ, regardless of what that measures and how useful it is overall.)
  - DabAsteroid 18y ago
    When I have already taken a whole ton of college classes, what is the point? Did you take the SAT after you had completed a ton of college classes? [Edit: abridged]
    - silencio 18y ago
      Yup. Had no choice. The second to last time I took the SAT was a few years back when I was still in like junior high and they were offering the one out of 1600. All the schools wanting SAT scores want the new one out of 2400 now. Ergo, I needed to retake it (well, more specifically, take the newer version of the exam) for applications.
smanek 18y ago
If the SAT was so easy (and I agree that it is), what's the big deal? It's 3 hours of your life and costs under 50 bucks (and they waive the fee if you can show need). You didn't have to spend a huge amount of time studying or money taking prep courses. Your rant reminds me of professional programmers who get insulted when asked to do fizz-buzz during an interview. What's the big deal? It's the quickest and easiest way to weed out the riff-raff. In my experience, the ones who get insulted are usually the ones who can't do it.
- KevinMS 18y ago
  Some people that score well on interview tests are the worst fuckuppited programmers you'd never want to work with. And some who blow it are a pleasure to work with. Those little tests don't account for documentation, architecture, scalability, readability, refactoring, etc. I don't give a damn if somebody can't come up with some little algorithm during the pressure of a test that could have easily just googled for, and also what is the best practices for that algorithm. You are probably somebody new to the industry.
  - smanek 18y ago
    Like I said, simple tests always have false positives. Of course a lot of poor coders can do fizz buzz. But, if you can't code fizz buzz in under five minutes, I guarantee you are a bad coder. It's a simple way to eliminate half your applicants. Sounds good to me.
  - silencio 18y ago
    That's exactly how I feel. Fizzbuzz and the SAT alike are to me just filling some very limited uses where they would come in handy - like if you ever DID ask fizzbuzz from an interviewee you'd at most be able to weed out people who don't know what the heck they're talking about, like some moron applying for a Java position that knows no Java. But to me the difference is that the SAT is like fizzbuzz applied to everyone regardless...if you had an interviewee that you knew in every way that fizzbuzz would be a waste of time (even that tiny amount of time) because they've proved themselves in some other way, you wouldn't ask. That's pretty much all I'm wanting. Some things are just not worth the effort because there's plenty else to see who they are and what they are capable of doing.

smanek 18y ago

In my experience, SATs are one of the few good predictors of intelligence (in a necessary-but-not-sufficient sort of way). Truth be told, the SATs aren't particularly hard so most bright people could walk in and take the test cold turkey and pull at least a 1500. Of course, there were a lot of false positives from people who took prep courses and worked their asses off (but, as a former princeton review tutor, I never saw more than a 100 point gain in any student no matter how hard they worked - and most were lucky to get 50 points). A kid whose parents had a few grand to burn on a princeton review course could boost his score from 1300 to 1350, but never to 1550. The problem with GPA/extracurriculars were that a lot of not very bright people could pull 4.0s and have good 'leadership' experience by gaming the system. And, even worse, a lot of smart people couldn't. A lot of the smartest people I know barely graduated highschool (or didn't). They saw the bullshit for what it was, and often had a knack for rubbing people the wrong way (especially at 16 - most of them can 'play the game' as adults). (Note: all my experience was with the old 1600 point SAT)

DabAsteroid 18y ago
In my experience, SATs are one of the few good predictors of intelligence Published research agrees with this: http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2006%20Intell%20Jackson%20&%20Rushton.pdf http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2006%20Intell%2... Although the SAT is widely believed to measure mainly academic achievement, Frey and Detterman (2004) have shown that it is an excellent measure of general cognitive ability (g). For example, they found that scores on the SAT correlated highly (0.82) with g extracted from the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), as it also did with g loaded mental ability tests such as the California Test of Mental Maturity (0.82), the Otis–Lennon Mental Ability Test (0.78), the Lorge–Thorndike Intelligence Test (0.79), the Differential Aptitude Test (0.78), the Henmon– Nelson Test of Mental Maturity (0.65), the Coop School and College Ability Test (0.53), and the Raven's Ad- vanced Progressive Matrices (0.48; 0.72 when corrected for restricted range).
yummyfajitas 18y ago
not very bright people could pull 4.0s and have good 'leadership' experience by gaming the system. Many college admins view this as a feature, not a bug. I've met a few, they tend to be that type of person themselves. It's a natural human trait to try to raise the status of people like yourself. Incidentally, I went from about 1250 to 1450 with a couple months of prep (no classes, just some books). I'd be curious if you know of good statistics out there.

DabAsteroid 18y ago

Full-text link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.htm... Commission Report .pdf: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922admissions.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922... NYT article comments: http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.html http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/09/22/edu... Excerpt from article: Mr. Fitzsimmons’s group, which was convened by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, also expresses concerns “that test scores appear to calcify differences based on class, race/ethnicity and parental educational attainment.”

markbao 18y ago

There are two major components in the theorized 66-75% of your college application decision, and that is 1) performance in high school and 2) SATs. If SATs are taken less seriously as masses of people say that it is an inaccurate prediction of intelligence, only past performance is a major factor in the admission process. And perhaps you're like me who didn't give a damn about what the school teaches, because other things seem more important, like entrepreneurship, and yet extracurriculars and character only make about 25-33% of the decision.

gamble 18y ago

Despite periodic bouts of hand-wringing like this, I doubt you'll see the SATs go away any time soon. Education is too decentralized in the US for universities to depend on high-school marks. The alternative to standardized testing is a rigorous, universal curriculum overseen by the state or federal government; otherwise, people will game the system by sending their children to whichever school marks the most generously.

Retric 18y ago
Collages use SAT scores because they are a better indicator of student performance than highschool GPA, or student’s involvement in outside activities etc. They might not split the population on the correct racial or economic fashion, but the simple fact is they are a strong indicator as to who will finish their freshman year. Compare the number of people who dropped out of collage with an old SAT score above 1400 to those with an SAT score below 1400 and you will see a dramatic gap.
Alex3917 18y ago
It's decentralized, but tightly coupled. If US News & World Report drops the SAT category for ranking colleges, you will see schools stop using the SAT overnight.

DabAsteroid 18y ago

Score-by-race table from the report .pdf (p40): http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922admissions.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922... Average SAT Composite Score by Race/Ethnic Group, 2007 African American/Black 17.0 American Indian/Alaska Native 18.9 Caucasian American/White 22.1 Hispanic 18.7 Asian American/Pacific Islander 22.6 Other/No Response 21.6 (ACT National Score Report, 2007. Retrieved from http://www.act.org/news/data07/charts/index.html http://www.act.org/news/data07/charts/index.html)

DabAsteroid 18y ago

Score-by-family-income/parental-education table (abridged) from the report .pdf (p40): http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922admissions.pdf http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922... SAT Reasoning Test Critical Math Writing Reading Family Income Less than $10,000 427 451 423 $10,000 - $20,000 453 472 446 $20,000 - $30,000 454 465 444 $30,000 - $40,000 476 485 466 $40,000 - $50,000 489 496 477 $50,000 - $60,000 497 504 486 $60,000 - $70,000 504 511 493 $70,000 - $80,000 508 516 498 $80,000 - $100,000 520 529 510 More than $100,000 544 556 537 Highest Level of Critical Math Writing Parental Education Reading No HS Diploma 421 445 418 HS Diploma 466 476 457 Associate Degree 484 492 473 Bachelor’s Degree 522 533 513 Graduate Degree 560 569 552 (College Board score report, 2007. Retrieved from http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2007/national- http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/c... report.pdf)

mdasen 18y ago

And replace it with. . .? Grades? Those inflated things? Recommendations? Wonder how long it will be before a family sues a teacher who gives a poor recommendation. HR managers already overwhelmingly provide positive feedback about former employees. Work samples? Awesome, except that you could get someone else to do it for you. Activities? Well, too many students are creating shell activities where they hold leadership positions. No meetings, no members to run against you for president, no hassle, no mess. Not that the SAT is much better considering the test-prep that goes on and the fact that the College Board no longer indicates different test conditions. Creating effective screens (both for school admissions and employers) is very difficult. You can create positive correlations between things - for example, those with higher SAT scores tend to be smarter. Doesn't mean that you don't have random idiots with high scores and smart people with low ones. But there is a positive correlation. As such, employers and schools will use that just as a life-insurance company would use the fact that you're a smoker to correlate with a greater chance of dying young. Some smokers live very long lives, but there is a positive correlation the other way.

KevinMS 18y ago

Its been shown you can actually score well on the SATs, at least a while ago when it was on paper and multiple choice, without actually having to read the questions. To me thats a failure of a test. Maybe they've fixed this bug, but here's an example. If you have a math problem like, (substituting x for actual words) x x 5 x 5 x x x And your choices are a) 5 b) 10 c) 15 d) 25 If this question is at the beginning of the test, its most likely the easiest solution, so pick 10. This is because the first questions are moved to the front because they are most easily solved by the worst test takers. These people, no matter how twisted their reasoning, most likely will come up with 10 by adding the two numbers they see, or just pick 5 because they just saw a 5 Towards the middle of the test you'd go with 25, because these are less likely, and necessarily wont be guessed by the dummies, but the people having reached this point will do something fancier like multiply the numbers together, At the end of the test, where its hardest to reach, the answer would be 15 because you are least likely to come up with that answer. This is the key to the whole hack- the answer to a difficult question cannot be accidentally guessed, otherwise, it would end up in the first questions, or just be thrown out. You see, they couldn't determine the level of difficulty of a question by reading it, they did statistically by who got it right, and how well that person did on the overall test, so if you had a question that was answered correctly by most takers who also got most of the other questions correct, and got wrong by those who didn't do well on the rest of the test, that was a "hard" question. When this was uncovered the testing company freaked out and the move to computers couldn't come fast enough for them (they administer these tests on computers yet?) Its because the test can dynamically be calibrated for the test taker and you can't use the first questions, middle questions, last questions rule.