3 ms·

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 parti

by 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.
smelendez 18y ago
> 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). Is that a "false positive" from a school's point of view? The goal is to predict who will do well in college. You can do well in college by being smart (quick comprehension, good memory, good brain for math, etc.) or by studying hard.
- DabAsteroid 18y ago
  You can do well in college by being smart ... or by studying hard. Are there MIT graduates who are not smart?

by smanek 18y ago

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.

smelendez 18y ago

> 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). Is that a "false positive" from a school's point of view? The goal is to predict who will do well in college. You can do well in college by being smart (quick comprehension, good memory, good brain for math, etc.) or by studying hard.

DabAsteroid 18y ago
You can do well in college by being smart ... or by studying hard. Are there MIT graduates who are not smart?