<p>Very nice OP. My cousin also had a very low SAT score (1960) but had excellent stats in other fields and was admitted into Stanford last year. The only bad thing really is that...well...if you really aren't as smart as those other guys who get the 2300 that go to Stanford, you're really going to suffer. My cousin had a relatively low SAT, but a great GPA and EC. However, she went to a crummy high school in the ghetto, so the difficulty of her classes were not as difficult as other schools; I would know, her homework and tests for her AP classes was like elementary school stuff in comparison to mine! So in a sense, her GPA didn't really represent her intelligence at all. Even though she got into Stanford, she definitely suffered this year, with a 2.6 GPA currently. She told me how other students would bash on her by saying "Oh you're one of THOSE people that got in." It's hard to bare really. So if you are one of those type of students, all I can say is good luck.</p>
<p>The SAT doesn't gauge intelligence too well. A 1400 is a 1200 with about $100,000. </p>
<p>Your cousin may have gotten a lower SAT, got into Stanford and only got a 2.6 her first year or semester (which could be decent depending on her major. Stanford's a tech school, so if she's doing sciences with a weak background it could hurt) that doesn't mean that the OP will. Cedric Jennings went to Brown with literally average SATs (1000's) and managed a 3.3. Ben Carson scored in the 90th percentile and managed to graduate at the top of his class as a psych major on the premed track at Yale. Anthony Jack went to Amherst with a 1200 SAT (over 200 points below the school's mean) and managed to graduate near the top of his class, and as a Rhode scholar. I personally know a girl with a 1750 at Northwestern that graduated comfortably in the top quartile that went to a school just as bad, or worse than the OPs. There are plenty of stories of students coming form modest educational backgrounds succeeding in highly competitive schools. Likewise, there are even more stories of students with high SATs and GPAs that flounder once they get to college. They don't necessarily drop out, but they switch majors and graduate with below B averages. That's because in college, studying hard and studying smart trumps just about everything, including intelligence (which isn't an SAT score) and preparation.</p>
<p>This may come as a surprise, but at Stanford, 50% the students graduate at the bottom half of the class. Don't think they're all students with lower SATs.</p>
<p>Would NearL do us all a favour and refrain from posting one fallacy after another regarding the SATs, college admissions, and AA. If s/he is so intent on voicing his opinion, then I suggest a thorough understanding of the subject being discussed. </p>
<p>The SATs are viewed as intelligence tests. The direct correlation to direct intelligence or g, is in question. Though many psychometricians do believe it is a reliable test. As for undergrad performance, the SATs are by far the most reliable and reproducible test on how well students will do during the undergrad years. The higher the score, the higher the likelihood that they will do quite well. Please, anyone interested in giving exceptions to this highly reproducible rule, don't bother.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the SATs are by far the most reliable and reproducible test on how well students will do during the undergrad years.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>SAT</a> I: A Faulty Instrument For Predicting College Success | FairTest</p>
<p>
[quote]
Validity research at individual institutions illustrates the weak predictive ability of the SAT. One study (J. Baron & M. F. Norman in Educational and Psychology Measurement, Vol. 52, 1992) at the University of Pennsylvania looked at the power of high school class rank, SAT I, and SAT II in predicting cumulative college GPAs. Researchers found that the SAT I was by far the weakest predictor, explaining only 4% of the variation in college grades, while SAT II scores accounted for 6.8% of the differences in academic performance. By far the most useful tool proved to be class rank, which predicted 9.3% of the changes in cumulative GPAs. Combining SAT I scores and class rank inched this figure up to 11.3%, leaving almost 90% of the variation in grades unexplained.</p>
<p>Another study of 10,000 students at 11 selective public and private institutions of higher education found that a 100-point increase in SAT combined scores, holding race, gender, and field of study constant, led to a one-tenth of a grade point gain for college GPA (Vars, F. & Bowen, W. in The Black-White Test Score Gap, 1998). This offered about the same predictive value as looking at whether an applicant's father had a graduate degree or her mother had completed college.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And now I'm done with the troll.</p>
<p>Fairtest.org?? The organization that zealously promotes that these tests are racist and sexist? </p>
<p>LOL!</p>
<p>Much more later, my dear misinformed, yet overly opinionated NearL. Better things to do right now.</p>
<p>This is why I want to get into a good school.</p>
<p>I want to inspire others, just like you've inspired those who thought they wouldn't make it out on on top.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>I find it funny that people have started talking about this thread over on the Harvard forum.</p>
<p>success in education, like everything else in life, is a combination of natural ability and effort. it should come as no surprise that the SATs are a weak predictor of GPA in college because an intelligent person who refuses to work will still do poorly. however, this does not mean that SATs are a poor predictor of intelligence.</p>
<p>According to Manning and Jackson 1984: "College Entrance Examinations." In
Perspectives on Bias in Mental Testing:</p>
<p>"It is doubtful that any other kind of test or even any other body of test validation research approaches the number of studies in which college admissions tes scores are related to future academic performance. The studies have been REPEATED THOUSANDS OF TIMES, AND THE RESULTS CONSISTENTLY SUPPORT the conclusion that...the higher the test scores the more successful, on average, the students are in college and graduate study."</p>
<p>The quote and reference above comes from The Affirmative Action Hoax. The data that is quoted involves the SATs before renorming in the mid 90s. The new SATs are less meatier than the old version and in turn, recent data attempts to paint them as less accurate in their predictive powers. Here we have a study from the <a href="http://www.ucop.edu/news/archives/2001/oct25art1.htm">UC system</a> that states:</p>
<p>"The study, "UC and the SAT: Predictive Validity and Differential Impact of the SAT I and SAT II at the University of California," examines the relationship between test scores and academic outcomes based on the records of nearly 78,000 first-time freshmen who entered the UC system over a four-year period.</p>
<p>UC has required freshman applicants to submit both SAT I (or ACT) scores and SAT II scores since 1968. As a result, UC has an extensive database on the two tests and is uniquely positioned to analyze their relative ability to predict college success.</p>
<p>Among the study's findings:</p>
<pre><code>* The SAT II achievement tests are a consistently stronger predictor of UC freshman grades than the SAT I. Scores from the SAT I add very little, if anything, to the prediction of UC first-year grades once high school grades and SAT II scores are taken into account.
When schools are ranked using the state's Academic Performance Index (API), the SAT II tests remain a better predictor than the SAT I across all schools.
SAT I scores are more sensitive to students' socioeconomic background than are SAT II scores. After controlling for socioeconomic background, the power of the SAT I to predict UC freshman grades is substantially diminished, while the predictive power of the SAT II remains strong.
Eliminating the SAT I in favor of the SAT II achievement tests likely would have little effect on the ethnic composition of students admitted to UC, since students from different ethnic groups perform about the same on the SAT II as they do on the SAT I, with only minor differences."
</code></pre>
<p>And finally, for me, another study done by Morrison at the University of Minnesota that states:</p>
<p>"the widely used SAT test is a valid predictor of success in college. Using the technique of meta-analysis, the researchers summarized previous research on how well the SAT predicts performance in college. The team found the SAT predicts GPA during freshman year and later years in college, as well as study habits, persistence and degree attainment. SAT scores also were related to scores on state nursing board exams; therefore, said the researchers, the SAT predicts success in entering the nursing profession. The purpose of this research is to determine the predictors of success on teacher certification exams."</p>
<p>It is clear, if one cares to delve into the evidence and not simply parrot PC bilge, that the evidence for the SATs as being intelligence tests (pre-renorming) and highly predictive for college success is mountainous. It is beyond dispute save for a few dinosaur apologists that refuse to let it go. There are reasons why places want to do away with standardized testing. It certainly is not because the tests give bad data.</p>
<p>Somesenior,</p>
<p>You are partially correct. It IS a predictor of success, ie GPA. The exceptions you refer to are possible, and do happen on occasion. Though, ON AVERAGE, people with high SATs, like the people on these boards are highly motivated and intelligent people. Nearly all of them will continue their amazing drive and continue to do well in college. A miniscule number might be overcome with laziness and screw up, though the chances are quite small.</p>
<p>Logically, how can one argue that class rank, HS-GPA etc, are better predictors than a standardized test? To me, that makes absolutely no sense. Not implying you have made that argument. Only thinking out loud here.</p>
<p>Are you kidding?</p>
<p>Because GPAs and class ranks reflect years of work ethic and academic performances while the SATs really only reflect one's situation on that particular saturday morning. </p>
<p>While the correlation is pretty high between score and academic performances, there are a lot of outliers. On both sides. Great students who get sucky scores and morons who get 2300s. Thats why the admissions process is beyond just that score.</p>
<p>How can you say that class rank is not a better method of appraisal? It evaluates the student in terms of his peers and the education received. Be it private or the worst public school around. Admissions are about the kids performance in terms of their surrounding so that ranking is very important.</p>
<p>A kid being ranked 2/119 tells a hell of a lot more about his academics than a 4-digit number of 2080. It doesn't say if the kid just filled in the bubbles to draw a flower, if he's a gifted academic kid, if he spent 4-months in an expensive private SAT prep course or if he studied out of a used copy of the blue book.</p>
<p>God, you haven't been an asset to your kids academics if this is what you've been preaching. You have a very skewed and may I had, highly prejudicial view of "education". Glad you're not on any adcom, no offense.</p>
<p>Murgo doesn't read what he/she posts.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Scores from the SAT I add very little, if anything, to the prediction of UC first-year grades once high school grades and SAT II scores are taken into account.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Grades and SAT II's (tests that are incredibly coachable) trump the SAT, which purports to test IQ, an abstraction that supposedly predicts undergraduate success.</p>
<p>
[quote]
SAT I scores are more sensitive to students' socioeconomic background than are SAT II scores. After controlling for socioeconomic background, the power of the SAT I to predict UC freshman grades is substantially diminished, while the predictive power of the SAT II remains strong.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The fact that SAT scores have a linear relation with income just proves that it's a test that targets and benefits the affluent. If you take socioeconomic background the power of the SAT scores diminish. (which is bad for murgo's argument)</p>
<p>Here's an interesting study done by Bates College. The numbers don't lie:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Among the findings of this 20-year study:</p>
<pre><code>* The difference in Bates graduation rates between submitters and non-submitters is 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent).
* The difference in overall GPAs at Bates is .05 (five-hundredths of a GPA point); the exact difference is 3.06 for non-submitters and 3.11 for submitters.
* Bates has almost doubled its applicant pool since making testing optional; about a third of each class at Bates enters without submitting testing in the admissions process.
* Testing is not necessary for predicting good performance; the academic ratings assigned by Bates admissions staff are highly accurate for both submitters and non-submitters in predicting GPA.
* Optional testing policies are often assumed to be a device for affirmative action efforts. Students of color use an optional testing policy at somewhat higher than average rates, and Bates has increased its enrollment of students of color and international students.** But white students using the policy outnumber students of color by 5-to-1.**
* The policy draws sharply increased application rates from all the subgroups who commonly worry about standardized testing: women, U.S. citizens of color, international citizens, low-income or blue collar students, rural students, students with learning disabilities and students with rated talents in athletics, the arts or debate.
* There are very modest differences in the majors that submitters and non-submitters choose at Bates, but some intriguing patterns: Non-submitters are more likely to major in fields that put a premium on creativity and originality.
* There are modest differences in the career outcomes of submitters and non-submitters, with one glaring exception: the four fields where students have to take another standardized test to gain entrance to graduate programs for medicine, law, an M.B.A. or Ph.D. *In fields where success does not depend on further standardized testingincluding business executive officers and finance careerssubmitters and non-submitters are equally represented. *
</code></pre>
<p>The National Association for College Admission Counselings (NACAC) national conference is the largest annual gathering of college admission professionals. The conference attracts more than 4,000 attendees annually, including secondary school counselors, college admission officers, independent counselors, financial aid administrators, enrollment managers and affiliate organization members.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Bates</a> College | SAT Study: 20 Years of Optional Testing</p>
<p>With all due respect, you can't be an idiot and get a 2300 on the SAT. The whole issue of test prep is way overblown--especially for the math section. It's not an automatic thing--you don't get a 2300 just from test prep. Working hard in school and engaging yourself intellectually are also key. The quality of your high school does matter, although you see people who go to bad high schools score high. I tested in the 1400's (out of 1600, recentered) after 1 semester of high school. (I needed to take it to get admitted to a magnet school.) I doubt that it was that one semester of high school that was responsible for it. </p>
<p>Naturally, your math score won't be as high if you don't get that far in the math curriculum. And going to a poor school can impact it too.</p>
<p>However, it just seems that people want to discount <em>every</em> measure of intelligence with some excuse. </p>
<p>I would agree that grades, rank, SATII's are important, but the SATI does mean something as well. It's not like an IQ test that puts your intelligence in stone, but it does say something about your intellectual level at the moment. </p>
<p>I'm pretty tired of all the bashing of high academic performers on CC, especially from those who want to go to prestigious schools. They enjoy it when people assume they are smart because they attend such schools, but they hate smart people themselves.</p>
<p>There's no bashing of smart people going on. Those that get in, get in because of their hard work and academic potential and absolutely deserve it. High scoring students do not fall outside of that truth. But if you're going to write off talented students who get in with low SAT scores as academic pariahs profiting off Affirmative Action then yes people are going to stand up to that skewed and somewhat ignorant view which in itself bashes the achievement of the student.</p>
<p>And hate to wet the paper for me, but yes there are dumb kids that get 2,300s. Well dumb may be a harsh term but kids with little to no scholastic motivation, with mediocre rankings and gpas whose parents bank everything on them scoring high on the SATs and spend obscene amounts of money to get them prepared to a much higher level.</p>
<p>And also, some people just don't perform well on the SAT format. There was a report on BBC a long while back about the SAT and ACT. Some incredibly smart kids were shown screwing the SATs and acing the ACTs. Thats part of the reason why colleges started accepting the ACT as an equal standardized measure to the SATs.</p>
<p>For the record, I don't think someone with a 2300 who has a mediocre GPA/class rank deserves to go to Stanford. </p>
<p>I've seen high GPA, high SATI/SATII's, and other measures of intelligence (competitions, recs, etc.) attacked as meaningless at one point or another on CC.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Because GPAs and class ranks reflect years of work ethic and academic performances while the SATs really only reflect one's situation on that particular saturday morning. </p>
<p>While the correlation is pretty high between score and academic performances, there are a lot of outliers. On both sides. Great students who get sucky scores and morons who get 2300s. Thats why the admissions process is beyond just that score.</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>God, you haven't been an asset to your kids academics if this is what you've been preaching. You have a very skewed and may I had, highly prejudicial view of "education". Glad you're not on any adcom, no offense.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>First of all, as is typical of people who do not know the art of debate or argumentation, I ask you keep anything of a personal nature out of your comments. You have no idea what I do, say, or promote in my personal life.</p>
<p>Second, I suggest you use some logic before answering. In the environment of grade inflation, weighted and unweighted GPA which determine CLASS RANK, you are saying a person with a GPA of 4.8 and 800 (M&V)on his SAT will do just as well or better than a GPA 3.3 and 1450 on his SATs? Yeah right.</p>
<p>I suggest NearL follow his initial impulse and stop responding as he continues to show his lack of insight into anything on a statistical and reading comprehension nature. Remember, I'm a troll? LOL</p>
<p>collegealum314 in #233, very well said.</p>
<p>I also hate that all is discounted that, unfortunately, fails to show "equality". The Holy Grail in our current environ.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But if you're going to write off talented students who get in with low SAT scores as academic pariahs profiting off Affirmative Action then yes people are going to stand up to that skewed and somewhat ignorant view which in itself bashes the achievement of the student.</p>
<p>And hate to wet the paper for me, but yes there are dumb kids that get 2,300s. Well dumb may be a harsh term but kids with little to no scholastic motivation, with mediocre rankings and gpas whose parents bank everything on them scoring high on the SATs and spend obscene amounts of money to get them prepared to a much higher level.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is pure PC pablum. Please provide evidence that "dumb" people get 2300 on their SAT. Or is it...you heard it...somewhere....maybe NearL said it? It is a near impossibility and you are simply regurgitating unsubstantiated garbage.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And also, some people just don't perform well on the SAT format. There was a report on BBC a long while back about the SAT and ACT. Some incredibly smart kids were shown screwing the SATs and acing the ACTs. Thats part of the reason why colleges started accepting the ACT as an equal standardized measure to the SATs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>More PC bilge. While it may be true that SOME do poorly in a pressurized, standardized format, and that some is a very small percentage of the whole. Most do as would be expected they would do. While I am sympathetic for people who do not perform well under pressure, it is a fact of life and a form of the weeding out process. Some people do well under pressure and gain the big rewards.</p>