<p>So I am a 3rd yr at UCLA and it has been about 3 yrs since I took the SATs. I was wondering what my score would be if I were to take the test today after 2.5 years of college education at a top university.</p>
<p>I know a lot of people in college (or out of) don't look at these forums any more, but I was wondering others' opinion. </p>
<p>I personally think I would do WAY worse on the SAT today if I took it without review. With some review, I still feel like I still wouldn't be able to do better than I did in high school unless I studied considerably.</p>
<p>Do you guy's feel similar? Do you think a college education actually helps critical thinking which would yield a higher score? If not, is the SAT actually a good indicator or "college readyness"?</p>
<p>Your questions are excellent. Being a data-oriented person, I would say: “Why not take a test and see what you get?” </p>
<p>I think it would be unfair not to review a little to refamiliarize yourself. There are 3 real tests available as PDFs free to download, which you may not have taken. Of course, I realize that this is more work for you than for me :)</p>
<p>Fluid intelligence (most directly related to the Math section, but some impact on CR) and crystallized intelligence (CR and Writing) continue to increase during the college years, so the scores should in theory go up. Of course, people whose majors involve no math will get rusty, and math/science majors’ vocabularies may not improve very much. </p>
<p>On the whole, I would expect CR scores to go up 30-40 points for the average person, Math scores to stay about the same (increase in fluid intelligence should compensate for rustiness on average), and Writing scores to increase by 50-60 points.</p>
<p>Interesting that you say it would increase by that much.</p>
<p>I don’t really want to take practice tests to gauge where I am at since only 1 or 2 tests wouldn’t be a great indicator of your true score due to the nature of the test. Getting lucky or unlucky on a few questions could be the difference between a 2100 and a 2300.</p>
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<p>A few questions can never make a 200-point difference. Also, reliability ratings for the SAT are pretty high; very few people who score 2300, for example, will drop to near 2100 upon retaking.</p>
<p>It’s more than a few questions.
@azngamer54 I totally agree with you. The SAT is a measure of how much you prepare for it (with exception to natural geniuses that already have that time-test-taking mind set). So after 3 years in college, one’s score will definitely go WAY down.
I still believe the SAT is reliable because it measure your determination and motivation in how much studying you do. I just feel like poorer students are put at a disadvantage due to a lack of resources.</p>
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<p>To an extent, yes (what test isn’t?), especially if you prepare effectively, unlike the majority of students. For the most part, no.</p>
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<p>On average, yes. This need not be the case, however, as I explain in my guide.</p>
<p>So being that it measures how much you prepare for it, usually students from well-to-do educated families have knowledge of these resources while many poor students in certain geographical areas may be smart, but have never heard of the “Blue Book” or Princeton Review.</p>
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<p>Again, to an extent. Find me a test that doesn’t.</p>
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<p>Yes, this contributes in part to the gaps in performance across different income levels. This is part of the reason that I wrote my guide.</p>
<p>yuppers…
awesome guide by the way…do you think you are gonna include that in your EC list in your college APP? :)</p>
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<p>No, I don’t intend to. It could easily be perceived negatively and would link my CC account to my application, which I don’t want.</p>
<p>Hmm maybe my memory is rusty, its been several years. </p>
<p>I remember for one of my tests, 2 wrong on the math section brought your score down from an 800 to a 710. I know for the writing and CR it isn’t as steep, but i thought like 6-7 questions could tilt your score a lot one way.</p>
<p>I think I phrased it wrong when i said " Getting lucky or unlucky on a few questions could be the difference between a 2100 and a 2300." </p>
<p>What I really meant to say is, there is a chance that a certain passage might blindside an individual because that may be their only weak point in that section. For example, getting a science heavy reading passage when you are very humanities oriented person. You should still be able to perform well since it is a reading test, but this person would be at a disadvantage. Same can be said for essay prompts. I remember I only had 4-5 examples I used for EVERY prompt. Usually these examples were very universal and can be used. So if I got a prompt that somehow didn’t fit my examples, my 12 essay and 780 writing score could have become a 6 essay and a lot lower writing score.</p>
<p>I say this because on one test I got like a 600cr 800math 640writing = 2040. I studied very minimally after this test and on the next one i got like a 700 CR, 680 math, 800 writing. Using absolute values to calculate the deviation from the first test, I would have got a deviation of 100 + 120 + 160 = 380. This data is kind of confusing since I deviated so far from the first score in every subscore, but “only” deviated by 140 in the total score. Since I believe that I did not get smarter/dumber between these tests, I blame the difference on test day conditions, curve, test containing material that i might prefer/hate, and natural variance. </p>
<p>I don’t know where I was going with this, but im too lazy to finish my thought. Basically there is a lot of variation on tests!</p>