GPA, SAT I, SATII, which one is most important?

[stradragon123]

<p>Yeah u do, although I am just a sophomore but have a great SAT score. Your GPA is what counts a lot for getting into top colleges but u have great scores Just make sure that you have something different to bring to the table like extracurricular activities or something that is unique and extraordinary about u</p>

[Silence1113]

<p>Hamburglar wrote:</p>

<p>

Do you have any data backing this up? At all? As I said, I didn’t study. And of all the people I know, 3 have taken an SAT prep class. 1 of them scored 2100+. Overall I know about 10 people who have 2100+, so the vast majority that I know who did well did not take these prep classes.</p>

<p>Also, where I live (Los Angeles) there is no “free tutoring”. That’s a joke. If you have a tutor (real one, not a student tutor), you’re probably very rich.

</p>

<p>Please tell me how could I possibly get such data? Like you, I also speak of the people that I know. Read the article that I posted? Use that as data.</p>

<p>Allow me to tell you what is “Tutoring”. Tutoring is when teachers stay for half an hour after school sitting at a desk and waiting for any students to come and ask them questions about concepts that they didn’t understand. It’s not a meeting between a student and a teacher where the teacher gives you a free lesson. That is what a private tutor does.</p>

[Hamburglar]

<p>“Please tell me how could I possibly get such data? Like you, I also speak of the people that I know. Read the article that I posted? Use that as data.”</p>

<p>That’s my point. Your friends at your wealthy/elite NYC specialty school do not represent the population. Nor do the people at my school represent the population. However, the burden of proof is on you since you’re making the claim that most high scorers attended a prep course. And your proof was insufficient.</p>

[doctorje24]

<p>

Allow me to tell you what is “Tutoring”. Tutoring is when teachers stay for half an hour after school sitting at a desk and waiting for any students to come and ask them questions about concepts that they didn’t understand.

</p>

<p>THANK YOU, and that’s available to every student that chooses to utilize it. If you’re proactive, then you’re golden.</p>

<p>

"Research studies on the effects of admissions test preparation programs have been published periodically since the early 1950s. Most of this research has been concerned with the effect of test preparation on the SAT, the most widely taken test for the purpose of college admission in the United States. On the main issues, there is a strong consensus in the literature:</p>

<pre><code>* Test preparation programs HAVE a statistically significant effect on the changes of SAT and ACT scores for students taking the test at least twice."

</code></pre>

<p>So, the key for higher benefits is to take the respective test at least twice in correlation with the test prep program. </p>

<p>Hamburglar, you’re clearly an exception, as well as those individuals that you know who are in the same situation. However, it’s evident that there is a correlation between high -scoring and the test prep programs. Those who enroll in these courses and take them seriously will yield good results. It seems to be an exponential function, the more hours that one spends at a test prep program, the higher their score will be (assuming they’re not naturally gifted and can go into a test with no prep and ace it). It’s obviously not linear, and there will always be outliers to the data.</p>

<p>Undoubtedly, it’s a controversial topic, a consensus is difficult to agree one, and it will continue to be.</p>

[Silence1113]

<p>@ Hamburglar: LOL! My school is NOT wealthy. NOT at all. They freaking steal money from us due to all the budget cuts. I think you misunderstand “Specialized High School” for “Private High School”. A specialized high school is a competitive school that you get into by taking a test.</p>

<p>Read the article. THAT’S my proof.</p>

<p>

Since its development in the 1920s, the SAT has faced criticism. One of the main the concerns is that the test favors students from families in the higher end of the income scale.</p>

<p>Even the test’s founding father, Carl Brigham, once voiced his misgivings about the fairness of standardized testing, stating that the system ignored factors such as schooling, family background, and familiarity with English.</p>

<p>The debate over the value of the SAT as an effective tool in college admission practices grew louder in early 2006, when a new controversy surfaced. College Board officials realized that thousands of tests had been misscored.</p>

<p>While officials from the College Board claim that all scoring errors were addressed and corrected in that situation, the scoring debacle re-energized the debate.</p>

<p>Some colleges are responding. A growing number are dropping the requirement for standardized test scores, and relying more heavily on grades, interviews, and essays.

</p>

<p>

It favors students from affluent homes and neighborhoods. According to data from FairTest, an organization that promotes fair and open testing, students who come from high income households do score higher.</p>

<p>The disparity could come from a number of factors. Parents and well-funded schools often pay for additional preparation for their students. Furthermore, many people claim that students from low-income families can face hardships and hurdles that don’t occur to many board members and college officials.

</p>

<p>[The</a> SAT Test - Fairness](<a href=“http://homeworktips.about.com/od/standardizedtests/a/SATfairness.htm]The”>Canisius College: GPA, SAT Scores and ACT Scores)</p>

[Hamburglar]

<p>That article says that wealthier people tend to perform better because of various facotrs. It doesn’t say that a prep course is usually necessary to do well, which is your claim.</p>

[Silence1113]

<p>

The disparity could come from a number of factors. Parents and well-funded schools often pay for additional preparation for their students (children). Furthermore, many people claim that students from low-income families can face hardships and hurdles that don’t occur to many board members and college officials.

</p>

<p>^^^You could guess what that, "pay for additional preparation " is ;)</p>

[synx111]

<p>How much does class rigor matter?</p>

[Silence1113]

<p>It matters. Colleges prefer that you challenge yourself by taking rigorous classes.</p>

[doctorje24]

<p>

While officials from the College Board claim that all scoring errors were addressed and corrected in that situation, the scoring debacle re-energized the debate.</p>

<p>Some colleges are responding. A growing number are dropping the requirement for standardized test scores, and relying more heavily on grades, interviews, and essays.

</p>

<p>To further Silence’s point. Get Ready for DATA, my friend. You wanted data, here it is… Cited from “Picturing the Uncertain World: How to Understand, Communicate, and Control Uncertainty through Graphical Display” By: Howard Wainer. </p>

<p>

On October 8th, 2005 NCS Pearson, Inc., under contract to the College Entrance Examination Board, scored an administration of the SAT Reasoning Test. Subsequently it was discovered that there was a scaling error that had affected 5,024 examinees’ scores. After re scoring it was revealed that 4,411 test scores were too low and 613 were too high. The exams that were underscored were revised upwards and the revised scores were reported to the designated colleges and universities. The College Board decided that “it would be unfair to re-report the scores of the 613 test takers” whose scores were improperly too high and hence did not correct them.

</p>

[Hamburglar]

<p>"You could guess what that, “pay for additional preparation " is”</p>

<p>The articles points that you’re highlighting (with no statistical data btw):</p>

<ol>
<li>Poor people score lower on average</li>
<li>Rich people more often put their children through prep classes</li>
</ol>

<p>Now, how do you take those two facts and get “people who score 2100+ usually had a prep class”? Major stretch.</p>

[Photographer]

<p>@ doctor </p>

<p>What exactly is your point, though? That the SAT is irrelevant because one year the Collegeboard messed up scoring? Don’t get me wrong. I hate the SAT / ACT. It’s a test that statistically favors the wealthy. But I don’t see what you’re getting at with this data.</p>

[doctorje24]

<p>

Not only do the children of the wealthy score unusually high on the SAT, they also have, by virtue of their wealth, increased access to test preparation materials and coaching schools — tuition for the Princeton Review course was $500 in 1984. The FTC investigation found that those candidates who had taken advantage of coaching were heavily concentrated in the upper income brackets: In 1978, 41% of the coached students came from the top income bracket of $30,000 or more. As Owen said of Princeton Review students, “[They] simply don’t take the same test… The effect would be the same if ETS randomly selected a thousand white, wealthy students each year, gave them the answers to the SAT in advance, and then denied that it had done so” </p>

<p>Like the razor wire surrounding a gated community, the “reasonable bounds” of the SAT serve to isolate the well-to-do from the rest of society and ensure that the wealthy and powerful are the only ones with access to the wealth and power.

</p>

<p>It becomes an issue of the “Have” versus the “Have Nots”</p>

<p>Now, although the data isn’t as recent as I would like it to be, it is data nonetheless.</p>

<p>@Photographer</p>

<p>I was just trying to give some concrete statistical data to the statement that Silence made here

The debate over the value of the SAT as an effective tool in college admission practices grew louder in early 2006, when a new controversy surfaced. College Board officials realized that thousands of tests had been misscored.</p>

<p>While officials from the College Board claim that all scoring errors were addressed and corrected in that situation, the scoring debacle re-energized the debate.</p>

<p>Some colleges are responding. A growing number are dropping the requirement for standardized test scores, and relying more heavily on grades, interviews, and essays.

</p>

[Silence1113]

<p>@hambruglar: “1. Poor people score lower on average”</p>

<p>Define what “lower score” means, and that’s your answer.</p>

<p>Also they tell you that they put them in courses for a reason: Because it improves their grades a lot.</p>

[Hamburglar]

<p>“Define what “lower score” means, and that’s your answer.”</p>

<p>Wow, SUCH flawed reasoning. Poor people probably score 1400 on average compared to like 1600. And poor people can’t afford prep courses. With a STRETCH, you could draw from that that a prep course will raise your score a few points. You CANNOT say that you probably need a prep course to get 2100+, because there are 2100+ poor/middle class people, <2100 rich people w/ courses, and people who took courses and got 2100+ that would’ve gotten that without a course.</p>

<p>No offense, but it really sounds like you’re trying to make excuses for doing badly. The SAT is an intelligence test, and course or not you need to be smart to do well.</p>

[Silence1113]

<p>Excuse me, but I hope you didn’t think a 1600 student even thought of applying to Columbia. Since we are in the Columbia section, it is implied that we are talking about potential Columbia applicants. </p>

<p>“You CANNOT say that you probably need a prep course to get 2100+, because there are 2100+ poor/middle class people”</p>

<p>^^^Exceptions</p>

<p>“No offense, but it really sounds like you’re trying to make excuses for doing badly.”</p>

<p>If you haven’t realized by now, I regret nothing. I gave the SAT what I got and that’s that. Anyhow, I was arguing this case:</p>

<p>

Since its development in the 1920s, the SAT has faced criticism. One of the main the concerns is that the test favors students from families in the higher end of the income scale.

</p>

<p>[The</a> SAT Test - Fairness](<a href=“http://homeworktips.about.com/od/standardizedtests/a/SATfairness.htm]The”>Canisius College: GPA, SAT Scores and ACT Scores)</p>

<p>I am not arguing anything for myself, espicially as you know it won’t change anything.</p>

<p>“The SAT is an intelligence test, and course or not you need to be smart to do well.”</p>

<p>^^^Subjective. It’s not an intelligence test. But rather a “Do you know the “strategies” to do well on this test” type of test.</p>

<p>My GPA of 4 years talks of my intelligence. Not a test that I took one Saturday.</p>

[doctorje24]

<p>

In order for a test question to make it onto a real SAT it has to have certain statistical characteristics. A question is used only if high scoring students tend to get it right and low scoring students tend to get it wrong. If low scoring students do as well as high scoring students, then the question will have an unacceptably low discrimination, and ETS will either have to rewrite it or discard it. The key to a successful test preparation course lies in its ability to address the circular logic in writing questions on a statistical foundation. David Owen, in his book None of the Above, describes just one such coaching school: The Princeton Review. In their method, test candidates are taught how to recognize the incorrect alternatives to a question. As Owen reported:</p>

<pre><code>Adam Robinson [one of Princeton Review’s founders] calls this average test taker Joe Bloggs. When Joe Bloggs takes the SAT, he scores 450. When ETS lays a trap for him, he steps in it. Princeton Review students learn how to avoid these traps by learning to understand how Joe Bloggs thinks. When Princeton Review students come to a hard question they don’t understand, they ask themselves: What would Joe do here? Then they do something else (124).
</code></pre>

<p>Owen’s reported average score increases for Princeton Review students were 185 points on either portion of the SAT. Roughly 40% of the students experienced gains in excess of 250 points (122).</p>

<p>At Princeton Review, candidates are also taught how to find the experimental section. Since it doesn’t count towards the final score, they fill it out at random and save themselves the trouble70. This effectively sabotages the SAT’s statistics on future versions of the exam. When they answer the questions at random, they reduce the difficulty of future SATs by making the pretest questions look harder than they are.

</p>

<p>Okay, so you “need to be smart to do well.” This article begs to differ, Hamburglar, the SAT prep courses apparently coach you to answer the questions, they inform you of traps to watch out for and such. While the Questions on the test day might be different, those hints will allow the person to do significantly better." You don’t have to be smart to ace the SAT, you do have to be savvy though… and be able to navigate through the ETS’ questions</p>

<p>

Subjective. It’s not an intelligence test. But rather a “Do you know the “strategies” to do well on this test” type of test.</p>

<p>My GPA of 4 years talks of my intelligence. Not a test that I took one Saturday.

</p>

<p>He could not be more right, I wholeheartedly agree with his statement. The information that i put in the quotation above only serves to fully support his argument</p>

[Hamburglar]

<p>“Anyhow, I was arguing this case”</p>

<p>I really don’t think that’s what you’ve been arguing all this time. I agree with the quote in your article, it’s undeniable: the wealthy will tend to score higher. The point I took dispute with was your saying that “most people with 2100+ took a course” and “if you want 2100+, you most likely need the Kaplan course”. These points are simply untrue.</p>

<p>Doctorje: I don’t know what your point is. Prep courses may raise an average student’s score a bit. The point I was arguing was the one I referenced above.</p>

[Silence1113]

<p>Generally speaking, those points are true. That’s what the whole article was arguing. It said wealthier people do better. Why? Because their parents payed for courses. What is this better…well who disagrees that in the Columbia zone, 2100+ is the “better”?</p>

<p>Also courses raise scores A LOT. (~100+). Of course this is if the student takes advantage of it.</p>

[doctorje24]

<p>Hamburglar - my point is simply refuting your statement that you made at the top of this page

The SAT is an intelligence test, and course or not you need to be smart to do well.

</p>

<p>That statement is false (see my post above if you have any doubts).</p>