I am always amused when people think grades are a great predictor, when they have been tied even more closely to family income than test scores. As are extracurriculars, since wealthy families have more time/money to assist their kids in pursuing those. But let’s minimize the data point that helps kids from bad schools show that they are really top-notch academically despite their circumstances, so that we can ease life for the suburban kid who “doesn’t test well”. If one chooses not to sit for a four hour test, that’s your decision. Kudos to the lower-income kids who manage to find the time for the test, and often can’t prep.
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Not sure how aware people are, but some companies also like to see SAT scores on resumes for first job.
old article. still …
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That seems to be in conflict with what The College Board found in https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED563419.pdf on SAT discrepent (i.e. higher SAT than predicted by HSGPA) and HSGPA discrepent (i.e. higher HSGPA than predicted by SAT) students.
Page 11 shows that, compared to nondiscrepent students, SAT discrepent students were more likely to be from higher income and higher education parents, while HSGPA discrepent students were more likely to be from lower income and lower education parents.
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Is Income Implicit in Measures of Student Ability? — Penn Wharton Budget Model.
According to this study: “SAT math and ACT scores each exhibit robustly positive correlations of 0.22 with household income. However, the correlations between household income and metrics like high school GPA and high school graduation rank are less than half as strong, ranging from 0.06 to 0.10.”
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OK, so they are still tied to income, and are particularly strong in suburban public schools (where over 600 of our graduating seniors have 4.0 gpa or more!). Really useful datapoint there.
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What I don’t understand is why people who don’t work at a college admissions office don’t believe AOs/Deans of Enrollment when they say they don’t need test scores to thoroughly evaluate applicants. We seem to all accept that MIT sees a benefit to the test score, but why do we not seem to believe the test optional/test blind peeps that they see no/insignificant benefit to test scores?
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That’s starting to fall by the wayside too, since many soon to be college grads have never taken an SAT or ACT, and there’s no way for a company to find out if they did or not.
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It’s politically expedient to drop the test score requirement for colleges, who don’t want to bother with the implications of dealing with various scores in the upcoming environment. Employers are quite different-they have a financial interest in getting the right employees, and need employees with appropriate skills more than colleges need skilled students. IME certain employers do still expect scores, will accept graduate scores in lieu thereof if necessary, and will ask for other proof of skills if there is any doubt on the matter (for example, AIME results, or results on the company’s proprietary test)
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Could be for some, but prior to the pandemic there were nearly 1,000 test optional schools including many highly rejectives and they all maintain the insignificance of test scores when reading applications and choosing whom to admit.
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So employers hiring college graduates (or students who will be graduating soon from college) want to see something done in high school?
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There are employers that ask
As noted above, they will accept graduate exam scores in lieu thereof usually. Also, students are often applying to those employers for internships in their sophomore year-so less than 2 years out of high school, when the scores are still quite timely.
I am aware of hedge funds that asked people over 30 for their scores. That seemed excessive to me, but I am not the employer.
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A friend was asked for college grades by BCG because he went to Harvard for MBA and Harvard doesn’t seriously grade.
Indeed companies are hungry for a reliable way of assessing people. IQ tests are illegal, but the military manage to get away with almost what is an IQ test. Some companies run their own tests. Indeed the tech guys have moved to massive online assessments before anyone looks at you in person. The online assessment is tightly timed, and hard. Then they look at you in person to see if you are a normal person. A good student wants testing. Otherwise someone from an unknown college will never the get look at a company. Similarly someone from rural Arkansas will never get the look at a good college if all methods of standing out are watered down. He’ll have to wait 4 years or more at a small local college before painfully climbing the ladder to better networks and resources.
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Wow looks like I opened a Pandora’s box thanks for the discussion everyone.
I have never been a fan of standardized tests feeling a 3 hr generalized rapid fire test does not mimic any particular skill in life other than taking other standardized tests and some people really do get anxious about them because of perceived pressures and weights they carry. But my feeling is things should be one way or the other. Require the test as they were way back when and accept the problems that go with them knowing there may be benefits for high achievers from low achieving schools or remove them completely.
The problem is the shroud of mystery that clouds the admissions process and the importance or lack of importance of this single data point (yes holistic admissions etc.) But realistically if you submitted a 1000 to a place whose average was 1500 you would have little to no chance of being accepted. Now, there is always a possibility if you don’t submit that score (assuming the rest of your application is very good).
With respect to the score predicting college “success” (good grades, finding a job, grad school) I think there will be a lot more data in the next few years assuming schools (colleges) track college GPAs etc of those that submitted test scores vs those who didn’t. I suspect there is little difference in student performance, drop outs etc. If there is and those who didn’t submit scores do worse that is a case for requiring tests. If there isn’t then there is a case for dropping ( except the under performing school/student issue).
Personally I wasnt a great standardized test taker, did OK but nothing special, still ended up going to a “top” school, did well there, and am doing fine. Going to a particular school (particularly undergraduate) doesn’t assure anything.
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I wonder if any of them publish grad rates and average college GPAs of TO vs. those who submitted test scores. That would show whether they are being academically honest, or political/business-savvy (higher denominator), in their statements.
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Well, we know the financially needy will still take the test. Need to for merit money. Only the affluent can choose to skip it.
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This statement is interesting. I for the life in me cannot fathom how kids that are high stat and do well in classes that I presume have exams find SAT/ACT stressful. How will they cope with college courses? What about competency exams if they choose to enter professional careers like accounting (CPA), engineering (PE) and other fields? And what about state mandated end of grade exams?
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And hence so many of the expensive test optional liberal arts schools attract >60% full pay kids. Wake Forest, Bates etc. come to mind.
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If you have a 1000, you shouldn’t apply to a place where the average is 1500. My son gave me the example of a kid that was the best kid that county or region saw in 10 years (from rural Arkansas), and the kid thought he was very strong. He came to Princeton, and was overwhelmed the first week with the reading load. Princeton could have 200-300 pages of reading a week per course in the humanities, not to speak about STEM courses which could have 10-15 hours of homework per course. He was drunk regularly because he felt depressed and humiliated. My son had to carry him back to the dorm one of the times. My son sounded very sad at the situation. It is really unfortunate.
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DePaul, Bates, and Ithaca have all published data showing similar college GPAs, retention and grad rates between those who submitted tests and those who didn’t, and there are probably more @data10 has posted this info on multiple threads over the years.
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