Thinking about, the verbal score is very important. I think I could argue that the verbal score may be more important to a math/engineering student than the math score is important to an arts student. Perhaps?
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Perhaps the essay or English grades are supposed to flush out those with truly limited verbal skills
As far as a new norm goes, I don’t think anything has changed for top high school students at middle-of-the-road or worse large public high schools — the kids with top test scores, grades, APs, and ECs, but no Naviance or college counselors and overworked school counselors.
For those kids, it was always a crap shoot of trying to figure it out on their own with no info about “how it is done” or creating a “spike,” and no boost because of the reputation of their high school’s reputation. The valedictorians of those schools with 1580 SAT scores never presumed they would get a lot of Top 50 acceptances, for the most part. Getting one or two acceptances and a few waitlists would be considered a big win.
If the norm has changed, it may be that the colleges are making more room for those random kids from nowhere schools and now the kids from the most highly regarded high schools no longer have as much certainty that those schools will be a pipeline to Top 50 or Top 20 colleges for the majority of students for the majority of their apps.
The uncertainty that was always there for most high schools has perhaps spread to the most highly ranked public and private high schools, too?
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The uncertainty seems to have spread to more public universities as well, regardless of where the applicants attended high school. See, for example, the threads on UC and UVA admission
Those public universities (selective UCs and UVA) are among the Top 50 ranked public universities.
Kids not from top high schools, at least in my area, have not counted on getting into those for a long time, either.
Even in-state?
I should have known my post regarding TO would make people get defensive - my mistake and you would think I would learn (as it isn’t the first time).
I will clarify - Let’s take the case of two school districts in my county (these are actual numbers). In a recent year, one had an average SAT of 1305 and the other had an average of 804. Nothing “special” about the high schools, not magnet schools.
The school with the 804 average had a valedictorian that year that could not crack 1000 on the SAT. The average sort of student at the 1305 school probably has about a 3.4 GPA. If a college is looking at transcripts - but no test scores - from the val at one school, and the average kid at the other, how do they figure out if the student is capable of handling the work at that college?
If you assume student capability based upon your knowledge of the schools, then you never accept anyone from the low scoring school? That doesn’t seem right, though odds are that the average kid from the high scoring HS is better prepared.
My comments don’t apply to most on CC - I am not talking about the kid who attends a great HS, takes rigorous courses and has trouble hitting 1400. And I don’t really think that AOs at colleges that get a large number of applications, such as a top public, know or research all the high schools even within their own state, much less OOS. Test scores provide the colleges with some assurance that a kid is prepared - I am not saying that the 1300 kid will be less successful in college than the 1500 kid.
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Yes, in state, too. This article refers to the class of 2011 — over a decade ago — at the University of Washington (the #20 top public school). A school many CC families would consider a likely or safety school.
Back then there was a hue and cry over 4.0 valedictorians not getting in.
Now most in-state students from average schools know not to go in expecting admission, no matter what, in my experience. They may not like it, but it is not a surprise.
I’d argue that there is something special about both schools. All this is the result of long-standing public policy which segregates people and education.
PS. I don’t really know if college admissions is the place to rectify these mistakes though.
I think that there is a college available for just about all. I don’t think that those students would be a shoe-in at many “top” colleges, but it does not sound like their HS experience has prepared them for that (not assuming where the fault lies).
AFAIK, highly selective colleges all use component/sectional scores, not the overall scores, to evaluate applicants. Almost certainly the component/sectional score that corresponds most closely to an applicant’s intended (or inferred) major must clear a higher hurdle than the other component/section.
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Back when that SAT section was called “verbal”, wasn’t it mostly an English vocabulary test? Seems like that may have been an attempt to proxy how well read the test taker was, but there were many situations where the proxy was not accurate (e.g. students who had English as a second language, or students who memorized “10,000 SAT words” out of a prep book).
But wouldn’t what the SAT RW section tries to measure also be apparent in college application essays? (In contrast, colleges do not ask applicants to solve math problems on the applications.) Colleges that want application essays may find that the SAT RW section is not as essential for rating the applicants’ writing skills as the SAT math section may be for rating the applicants’ (high school level) math skills.
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The most useful component on the “verbal” test was the section on analogies, IMO. Having memorized the vocabularies certainly helped, but was far from sufficient.
Application essays may not be written independently by the student. Besides, these essays aren’t meant to be used for that purpose (at least that’s what colleges claim).
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The analogies section was removed several years ago (2005, per google).
Yes, I should have used past tense. The post I responded to refers to the older SAT tests.
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Setting MIT aside, I think parents of high performing kids tend to greatly overestimate the power of these tests at predicting innate ability, rather than preparation.
Almost 50% of STEM graduates from the UCs started at community college. I think it is a safe bet that most of them didn’t score in the high 700s in SAT Math (if they even bothered to take the test.)
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Oh gosh. I don’t know. S19 is a math major at Bowdoin. NO WAY that D would be able to do that work. I’m not even sure most kids at Bowdoin who aren’t STEM majors could do it.
Lots of people can be STEM graduates in the UC system, which is great. Not all STEM grads have or need the best quantitative skills-majoring in math might lead to a career as a middle school math teacher, for example, which is a very nice thing. And the UC system is set up to offer slower math tracks and remedial education, which many privates schools are not prepared to offer. So for them, I understand that math scores may be less important.
The skill is less important, and there are other ramps to acquire it. MIT professors are not really interested in reviewing algebra 1 or 2 concepts with students, so if that is needed ( as shown by low scores), best go elsewhere
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When I took the SAT long ago, I found the analogies and other vocabulary based questions to be easy if you knew the words, hard if you did not.
Of course, there was cheating on the SAT as well.
Maybe not explicitly, but a poorly written essay may not leave a good impression on the reader, and may not convey the intended point due to difficulty understanding it.
That’s closer to a measure of aptitude, provided you already knew the words.
That wasn’t as widespread, presumably.
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