<p>No, it's about logistics and reality.</p>
<p>I got high scores with zero studying. The SAT is made to cover such a broad base of material that being tutored on how to answer the specific questions won't make a significant dent in your score.</p>
<p>Brilliant kids in poor areas or from poor families definitely get shortchanged. However, I'd say it's more of a long-term problem with our educational system and even our entire society than a problem with the SAT.</p>
<p>lol, Ray, the reality is that it's all about money! Meaning that it's a scam.</p>
<p>Man, I'm done repeating myself.</p>
<p>How is it about money? I mean, what the hell, at least explain what you're talking about.</p>
<p>Oh and a $20 book is for the wealthy? Then go to the library. Unless a library card is too expensive.</p>
<p>I absolutely agree with the above. People always focus on the stuff at the end of the process--affirmative action and SAT's--when they start whining about the college admissions process, but there are a good 10 to 12 years of flawed schooling that leads up to the generally accepted necessity for those measures.</p>
<p>MONEY IS TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT BY THE COLLEGES. Maybe not enough, probably not enough, but that's a problem with more than the SAT. The fact remains that right now, overall, the SAT is the best we have and it is NOT going away. Sorry.</p>
<p>So what do you propose we do about it? Ignore SATs and go solely with GPA and class rank? Because money influences those just as much (probably more, since money can buy both a house in a good public school area or, more commonly, fees for private school. Tutors, proper nutrition, everything.) Money determines so much. So please, kheryn, propose an alternative. Seems to me like you just got a bad SAT score and are miserable that others do better. Either that, or you don't want to see your future school, Sarah Lawrence, be put in bad light because of this.</p>
<p>Sorry, Ray, I misread a comment you were saying above. I thought you were admitting something along the lines of this:</p>
<p>Schools get large endowments because they remain mainstream. Sarah Lawrence doesn't have a large endowment - and oh my, what a surprise, it's one of the most innovative, anti-mainstream schools in the nation. Schools don't want to give up the SAT because if they do, they won't get money anymore. It's a well-known truth. On top of that, people have to pay to take the SAT - something most people can't even do. </p>
<p>Ray, I have no idea where you're living - or maybe it's me, who lives in a place where most kids are below the poverty line - but when you can't afford 20 bucks, you can't afford to go to the library to study for an SAT. You have to spend most of your time working - and I mean physical work, cleaning the house, taking care of your brothers and sisters... Yes, it exists. </p>
<p>advantagious, it's going to go away once people admit there needs to be a change and once people work hard to get that change. Our society needs a bit more change right now, I think - especially since it originated from ancient ideas.</p>
<p>Yes, bigp, I do - or at least replace the test with another test that evaluates a student's work ethic or passion for learning; a test unique to each school so that the student truly fits to that school's philosophy. Sarah Lawrence, for example, emphasizes individuality and uniqueness. They can make a test that measures how much a student values his or her own individuality and uniqueness. Columbia values the core - they can test the students on how much a student is willing to learn from every subject. That's one idea, I think, that can afford to be expanded on. The admission process will take a bit longer; but I prefer that to kids having numbers stamped on their foreheads.</p>
<p>And no, I didn't - in fact, for my region, I did quite well. Doesn't mean I like it, though. </p>
<p>SLC is already put in a bad light. It doesn't matter; I'll be getting a damned good education there anyway.</p>
<p>No - I hate the SAT and US News's list because they're overrated, unethical scams. That's all.</p>
<p>I'm not sure how taking a bunch of objective facts (aside from peer assesment scores), weighting them, and creating a ranking is unethical.</p>
<p>I think this article is more about the US news rankings being the scam...</p>
<p>"According to Myers, U.S. News' director of research explained to her his reasoning: schools that chose to quit the SAT, he said, were admitting "less capable" students, and therefore ought to be downgraded in the rankings."</p>
<p>according to the article
""What this means is that for all practical purposes, U.S. News rankings of best colleges can largely be reproduced simply by knowing the average SAT/ACT scores of their students," Kuh and Pascarella concluded in a 2004 study."</p>
<p>I don't think it is saying the SAT is as much of the evil...</p>
<p>I disagree Kheryn. The SAT's aren't going to go away, not anytime soon. I wish that they could realistically go away in a way that made the process more, not less fair, but I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future. I am very sympathetic to the incredible difficulties faced by the truly poor applicant, but the SAT's are just a teeny, tiny tip of that iceberg.</p>
<p>Equality in education won't exist until</p>
<ol>
<li>A voucher system is implemented, with the voucher being at the highest reasonable cost of a good education.
This would essentially let poorer students shop around for the very best school, public or private, as the richest students do.</li>
<li>All students are assured health care and nutrition.
This is basic.</li>
<li>All students have an intellectually stimulating home environment.
I know so much of what I do because I'm constantly discussing, reading, and debating with my parents. Most students don't have this kind of environment.</li>
<li>Summer programs become free or needs-based.
Summer programs help admissios and also help students get ahead during the school year.
***5. Teachers set the same expectations for minorities as they do for non-minorities.
In one of George W. Bush's few good quotes, he rails against the "soft bigotry of low expectations."
Listen to the following study:
Researchers came into elementary school classes and administered what appeared to be an IQ test. They told the teachers they were measuring the student's natural ability. They then randomly selected students and told the teachers that these students had been identified as Academically Gifted. The researchers sat back and observed, and by the end of the year, all the students labeled as Academically Gifted (by RANDOM SELECTION) were the highest-performing students in the class!</li>
</ol>
<p>Until all students have positive environments, equal choice between schools, and teachers expect excellence from all of them, we can't expect the achievement gap to close.</p>
<p>P.S. I have no idea how to implement those ideas and I don't think it'd even be possible for government to do it. All people of society would have to genuinely care about the problem and try to fix it because it's the right thing to do.</p>
<p>Well, then, if poor kids can't study for SATs at all then I fail to see how other factors are more advantageous for them. Transcripts? Great, when they had no time to do homework or study or sleep. Community service? Extracurriculars? Or essays? Wait, they never developed great essay writing skills because they didn't have the time. Frankly, the SATs seem much more fair than other factors for poor kids simply because they require the least time to do. </p>
<p>And please, don't talk to me about poverty. I went to schools where there was no sewage system, no technology more advanced than a light bulb, merely a overly crowded, dirty, crumbling room with a badly marred chalk board and teachers who barely finished grade school. </p>
<p>Testing for passion for learning? Are you serious? What kind of questions would that test have? That is supposed to be reflected through ECs, transcripts and essays. Tests are supposed to measure objective abilities, not this. And a test unique to every college? Oh these poor kids have no time to prepare for tests... so let them take one test for every college they apply to instead of just one! That'll be a time saver for them! Or wait, I want to go to a small college thousands of miles away... but I can't take their test because they don't have any applicants in this area so they don't offer it here!</p>
<p>And endowments? Sarah Lawrence has a small endowment because it's a small school. Then again, Grinnell has $1.5 billion and it's pretty non-mainstream.</p>
<p>Having sat in on discussions about the education system, I can tell you that in my experience, the amount of people resistent to change is huge. Most people are ultimately selfish, and if it doesn't DIRECTLY benefit them, they're not for it.</p>
<p>That's how everything with the human race is, unfortunately.</p>
<p>It seems to be you just have a bone to pick with the SAT because there are many other factors in the admissions process that rely on money just as much if not more. </p>
<p>I don't see you attacking legacy admits, why not?</p>
<p>There have been several published research papers that show that SAT scores are a better predictor of success in college than high school GPA.</p>
<p>The bottom line is this:</p>
<p>If SATs weren't a good predictor of success, colleges wouldn't use them.</p>
<p>The Bottom Line is That it Isnt:</p>
<p>My cousin got into Columbia University , School of Engineering. She was accepted through the HEOP program due to the fact that her parents were only recieving benefits from social security. She recieved on her SAT V480 M450, which by the way is really low and for those here at the board , I think you would have had a heart attack if you got these scores. I am proud to say that she has a 3.7 GPA at Columbia Engineering. So tell me how well does the SAT predict how well you will do in collge. I think you need to realize that the SAT is a business . FINAL.</p>
<p>Dennis, I would appreciate it if you had read some of our posts before posting with your anecdote. I have posted multiple times that income level/race/disadvantaged status DO have an effect on SAT scores, and that those scores cannot and are not looked at in a vaccuum. Indeed, for a person of an extremely disadvantaged background, those scores might be very fine indeed. Columbia looked at them and at her application and entire background, and made the (correct!) decision that she could handle the work. I'm happy for your cousin, although I would note that she would probably have been one of the only, if not the only, accepted applicants with that level of scores. Very much an exception to the rule. </p>
<p>However, SAT scores are still valid tools. An upper class, advantaged applicant who received those scores should not, could not, and would not be accepted, because those scores coming from such an applicant would not merit entrance to an institution such as Columbia and would not indicate that that student was prepared for the academic work there.</p>