Article about the new SAT

<p>Here's an interesting article about the new SAT results and the difficulty kids and schools are having figuring out what the scores mean.</p>

<p>Interesting tidbit: Only 107 people scored a perfect 2400. Anyone have the number for how many typically scored a perfect 1600 on the old SAT?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51225-2005Apr13.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51225-2005Apr13.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Meanwhile, my daughter is still waiting for her scores from the March test. Yesterday, the College Board said "her scores have been processed but it may take up to 8 WEEKS for us to post them." Daughter let out a small cry of alarm when she heard that!</p>

<p>Stats comparing 1600/2400:
[quote]
Of the 1.4 million 2004 high school graduates who took the old SAT, 939 scored a then-perfect 1600, according to Brian O'Reilly, the College Board's executive director of SAT information services.</p>

<p>The percentage of test-takers who hit triple-perfection on the new test in March is about half that, though O'Reilly said comparisons are difficult because the group took the new test on its first offering may not be typical.

[/quote]

<a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/04/12/state/n140623D55.DTL%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/04/12/state/n140623D55.DTL&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I also read somewhere that the College Board was surprised at the relatively high number of 2400 scorers -- they had apparently projected it would be several years before more than 100 students would hit 2400. (Can't find the reference just now, will keep looking...)</p>

<p>That sounds awfully low Carolyn, 107 out of 300,000...........that's 0.03%.
I believe that the old SATs typically would have 500 to 600 students get a perfect 1600 at each test date.</p>

<p>Seems low to me, too. Then again, since the "old" SAT only yielded 0.06% of perfect scores, and it's reasonable to assume that at least some of those perfect scores were achieved on the 2nd or 3rd try -- I can see how the College Board can think that .03% is actually a high number for the first new test.</p>

<p>I wonder if you looked at who scored 800/800 plus 800 on the SAT II writing in years past, if that number is significantly lower than just the 800/800 M/V numbers. </p>

<p>I also thought I saw some mention of not expecting to see perfect scores for at least 7 sittings...so actually 107 perfects already is pretty good.</p>

<p>That's why it caught my eye in the article but yes, that's what was reported, 107 perfect scores.</p>

<p>Of course, I like to think that the number will rise when they finally get around to my daughter's test. :)</p>

<p>Yay, you go Carolyn's D!!</p>

<p>Member
*
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 794 </p>

<p>In California, 24 students had perfect scores of 2400. In New York state, 11 did, Mass had 7, and the total was 107</p>

<p>Of the 1.4 million 2004 high school graduates who took the old SAT, 939 scored a then-perfect 1600, according to Brian O'Reilly, the College Board's executive director of SAT information services</p>

<p>Wow. It means that 3 states had nearly half of the total of perfect scores (42 out of 107).</p>

<p>Carolyn, did the College Board explain the delay with your daughter's scores...or is that typical?</p>

<p>It would be interesting to see the break down of essay grading scores. How were the essays distributed to scorers? I know there are two scorers and if they don't agree, a third looks at the essay, and there may be no correlation between high percentage from three states and the essay scorers, but it still would be interesting to see if the same scorers scored the 800point essay. Most likely there could be no pattern, but....</p>

<p>As well, I am wondering how much we will get from the collegeboard in that regard.</p>

<p>I think that everything is pretty much in line, as well as TCB's surprise. Each administration of the old SAT yielded between 100 and 200 perfect 1600. Since it is statistically harder to get 3x800 than 2x800, the number seems to fall in the expected range. </p>

<p>However, the entire distribution of the scores should much more interesting to analyze, especially how well ETS predicted the mean and median scores. </p>

<p>As far as the 42/107 (39%) students from the three states, one needs to remember that those students represent more or less 30% of the test takers.</p>

<p>So 30% of the test takes came from just three states?</p>

<p>2400 scores uodate
six in Virginia,
five in Maryland and
three in the District of Columbia</p>

<p>Officials with the College Board, which administers the test, said it will take at least a year before they will have a large enough sample to provide comparison data, including average scores and percentile information, to the public.</p>

<p>There is no breakdown available for the new SAT, but typically California accounts for about 15% of test takers, NY for more than 10%, and Mass for about 3-4% in the nation.</p>

<p>An exact figure is probably available on the CB site, but there is little reason to believe that the numbers change dramatically.</p>

<p>Although the colleges are considering the verbal and math portions of the new SAT to be equivalent to the old, this isn't really the case, is it? The changes in the SAT did not just include a new essay, but elimination of some parts and overall restructuring of content to test achievement rather than aptitude. I've heard students say that they have received their "numbers" but not percentiles. My question is, what is the distribution of the scores in each of the sections? Are the distributions similar to those of the old test?</p>

<p>I've given these stats in a couple of other discussions. We had to call to ge my son's scores and they gave me percentiles as well.</p>

<p>Math 720 / 96th percentile
CR 700 / 94th percentile</p>

<p>Thanks, Rascal. How does this compare to the old SAT?</p>

<p>echosensei, last year a combined 1420,720+700, would have been the 97 percentile overall, 96th for boys, 98th for girls. CB will have the individual component test breakdowns but I had these handy-sad as that seems. LOL.</p>

<p>It looks to me like it is going to track pretty well in line with years past.</p>

<p>CollegeBoard could easily "right" the curve by ramping up the difficulty of some portions of the test and admonishing the essay evaluators to be more stringent. I'm sure the last thing they want is for their costomers (colleges/universities) to get the impression that this new product is "easier" than the old test, and therefore, not an accurate indicator of true excellence.</p>

<p>I wonder how well students from poor and minority school districts fared on this new test. If it turns out to be significantly less well than the old test...</p>