<p>Learn from it and talk about it, if you like; but to add to the article, I think collegeboard.com and the SATs should have been emphasized as a scams too. SATs are overrated for the wrong reasons, and people tend to waste their time and money on these tests.</p>
<p>(Yes, I posted this in College Search & Selection too.)</p>
<p>Colleges get thousands (or tens of thousands) of applicants every year. Personal qualities, while important, can be easily inflated and are very hard to verify. Essays can be telling, but they provide only part of the picture.</p>
<p>The problem with grades is that they differ from high school to high school.</p>
<p>Standardized tests are important because, as the name suggests, they are standardized. They cannot be "fudged" in the same way as an essay or list of extra curriculars can be made to look good. </p>
<p>I'm not saying that the test is perfect, but it does provide schools with a way to measure students relative to other students.</p>
<p>The SATs are a necessary evil - there needs to be something that is standardized across the board. </p>
<p>Ex. </p>
<p>Class Rank - Is flawed because you may be comparing a school like Exeter to Mississippi High School.</p>
<p>GPA - Not all schools are of the same difficulty (see above)</p>
<p>Essays - Are very subjective ... example: I write about how abortion should be banned and the reader is a liberal. Person B writes about the same thing but he/she gets a conservative reader. Plus, people can be hired to write these or provide 'editing services'</p>
<p>Personal Qualities - I don't think colleges know enough about you to gleam what personal qualities you have. </p>
<p>SATs, if anything, put everything in context.</p>
<p>SATs are not standarized. How can they be, when the wealthy kids can afford to put hours into preparation while others can't? How can they be, when some are simply good at taking tests while others are slower at tests?</p>
<p>I know a genius - yes, he is literally a genius - who did horribly on the SATs. He has ADD, and even with extra time, he didn't do well. I'm sure you know idiots who have done well on the SATs simply because they practiced useless questions.</p>
<p>How is that standarized? How is that FAIR? </p>
<p>They're not. But, because collegeboard.com and US News say that they're important, thousands of people are conditioned to believing that they are. Money is the main objective of the SATs - for both the colleges and the testing service. It's overrated. It's unecessary. And, personally, I think it's almost barbaric.</p>
<p>Kheryn, in that case every tangible factor in the college admissions process can be unfair. Money can basically buy everything ...</p>
<p>it can buy a move to a less competitive high school for a higher class rank
it can buy tutors for that higher GPA
it can buy higher SAT scores
it can buy that 40,000/yr consulting service that edits your essays
it can buy a trip to [college] so you can get that interview</p>
<p>edit: SATs are more standardized than most because every student essentially takes the same test.</p>
<p>-Lurker-, why should it matter what school one goes to? If that person is at the top of their class, that means that they have work ethic. Maybe some students weren't as challenged as the priviliged, welathy kids that go to private schools, but that means they didn't work hard.</p>
<p>It's the same with GPA.</p>
<p>Hopefully, for the essay you'll have learned NOT to write about abortion. It's the first thing people are told when writing: make it personal, not political. Besides, people are trained to realize that it's about writing skills - not opinions. </p>
<p>Personal qualities shine through in teacher recommendations, community service, and often in essays. Colleges have also made a habit of asking about past records - if you've ever been in trouble.</p>
<p>Money can't buy work ethic at that high school.
Money can't buy work ethic for that higher GPA.
It certainly can buy higher SAT scores, which is partly why I don't like them.
But no, unless you're paying that consultor to write the essay, I don't think money can buy writing skills.
And believe me, I've never had much money to go to schools for interviews. That's why I did everything over the telephone. =)</p>
<p>Exactly. As unfortunate as it is, money helps a lot with every single facet of college education. Although they are clearly not perfect, the SATs are just important because the test itself--the actual score on the paper--is relative and judged the same as every other test score. This cannot be said for other methods of application judgement. While AA and low-income acceptances help to deter the money issue, they most certainly do not come close to evening the playing field. It's just the way it is.</p>
<p>
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wow, that seems a tad ridiculous to me. And we actually use these rankings to judge schools?</p>
<p>"An April 29, 2003, USA Today article cited on the IvyWise website quite explicitly suggested that true selves do not go into sessions with Cohen so much as emerge from them: "Katherine Cohen," it reports, "sometimes begins working with students in their freshman year of high school — long before the actual college search begins. She and her staff will plot out the classes that students should take, line up tutors to help students brush up on shaky academic skills, edit their essays to colleges and help students find good internships and study-abroad programs for their summers.""</p>
<p>Just look at what money is able to do - connections to publishing companies to publish a book that sold thousands (even if it was plagiarized ...), arranged internships to investment banks, a trip to mexico to help the poor.</p>
<p>To deny that money effects only SATs in the college admissions process is kind of naive. Lets not even get started about alumni</p>
<p>Kheryn: Yes, a good work ethic is required at both an excellent private high school and a poor public one. But a student at the private has so much stronger competition than one at the public.</p>
<p>Money also can't buy the work ethic to go to that SAT prep class twice a week.</p>
<p>kheryn,
You will be going to Sarah Lawrence College which is on record as not favoring the SAT. Good for you and good for SLC, but there are many, many others who believe that standardized tests can play a very legitimate in the college admissions process. </p>
<p>As for your question about the math question on collegeboard.com, I thought it was a very good question that not only required you to interpret the data points and understand what was being asked, but then challenged you to construct the proper equation that would solve the problem. I can imagine such a question being relevant in building/interpreting a statistical analysis of data that might be used in any number of jobs/industries.</p>