For those interested in the New SAT and college gpa, the College Board undertook a pilot predictive validity study of the New SAT in 2014, sample size around 2000 students (https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/redesigned-sat-pilot-predictive-validity-study-first-look.pdf), but the National Predictive Validity Study for the New SAT will not be completed until 2019. https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/educators/higher-ed/test-validity-design/validity-studies
So the solution is to add more testing time/test prep?
Again, the SAT/ACT is a total bridge to nowhere, aside from, I guess, preparing some kids who might eventually take GRE/LSAT/MCATs to the realities of that kind of test.
No human being ever (ok, 90%? 95%?) of all humans who take the SAT, pay their money, and have it sent to some schools ever look at it again. (Except me, I had my score tattoed on my neck… but that’s me.)
At least APs have some intrinsic financial value to some students.
The question remains unanswered: if colleges feel they can accurately select a class based on other criteria that are a real, normal part of a kids education: (GPA, rigor, LOR, ECs, essays (which also are a bit of a “bridge to nowhere” but at least help develop writing skills in the margins - but that’s a stretch) interviews, and HS history, even APs) why would we want kids going through this extra testing. I can’t imagine why.
So the only question really is whether colleges can select without SAT/ACT testing? It’s pretty clear that many colleges could - and already do. Then we get to the “selective” and “elite.” Do they need testing?
Could majors that require special skills require tests only - so engineering/hard science could require an SATII in Math or Physics or???, but skip the SAT?
Could high schools simply present a writing portfolio? (but how will Colleges know if you’re a serious applicant if they don’t have the “Why StuckupU” essay…!!! Guess that’s their problem…)
What is the equation that make 4 - 10 million Saturdays a year doing busy work (that you pay for) worth it?
Any economists in the crew want to take a stab? Mental health professionals? Secondary school educators?
We could use the British a-levels model. Requirements for college applications could be three SAT subject tests: 1 math, 1 English, 1 science or history. At least kids are prepping for a subject test for course they actually took and learn something from.
This would be in lieu of the SAT or ACT
The corresponding AP exams could substitute for the subject tests if the student has taken them before fall of senior year.
Could be… buy why? That’s still at minimum 6 millon Saturdays a year. 24 million volunteer hours, or 24 million hours of exercise or 24 million hours of sitting in the park talking about cool stuff.
I just don’t understand why, if colleges think they can live without this stuff, parents don’t believe them.
It is easy to feel better about the Subject tests, but I don’t think they solve any of the problems people now have with the SAT/ACT. First, and probably foremost, the results would still correlate strongly with socioeconomic status. Second, high achieving kids would still test prep the heck out of the test. And while it might seem better to cram for the subject tests, I am pretty sure test gaming strategies would emerge as soon as they became high stakes.
Mostly, I just don’t get the focus on the time spent on the SAT/ACT compared to all the other parts of the application. As noted above the essays are a writing genre all to themselves, and at least for my kid probably took more time than all the test prep combined, and weren’t any more useful. GPA gaming is alive and well, etc. Also, for elite admissions with its bounty of info, multiple essays, LoRs, extracurriculars, interviews, study of transcript, the value added of the SAT/ACT may be small. However, in this case the additional effort in the SAT/ACT is also not enormous compared to the rest. And for most admissions, all that info isn’t there, adcoms are processing a bazillions basic apps per hour, and the real question is whether grades + SAT is better than grades, and the answer is yes.
Well, currently the elite colleges still require these tests, so obviously some people there believe it is still useful. Why is it that you don’t believe them?
My suspicion is that these tests are actually less useful for the elites now than pre-1995, when the SAT was much more of an intelligence test than it is now.
Wouldn’t the level of SAT subject tests be more like UK-style O-level, while the level of AP tests be more like UK-style A-level?
The SAT subject tests should not be hard to score >700 by a student who earned an A in a decent-quality associated high school course (e.g. precalculus for math level 2). But they could expose a lot of poor high school quality. AP tests should not be hard to score a 4 or 5 on by a student who earned an A in an AP course (e.g. calculus for AP calculus).
But there are probably lots of low quality high school courses that would be exposed by their A students scoring poorly on SAT subject or AP tests. A need to cram for SAT subject or AP tests should be a signal that the high school needs to improve the quality of its courses.
@CaliDad2020 because the rest of the application can be faked/gamed. GPAs and grades are too variable. I believe testing is a useful equalizer. Subject tests and APs much more so than SATs and ACTs.
I have no problem with a few Saturdays used over a couple years for testing. There are worse ways to use your time.
@suzyQ7 If 6 million is “a few” ok…
It’s very interesting to me how many (I assume) parents so aggressively defend testing. It’s expensive, time consuming and, according to at least some of the data and many of the schools, redundant.
Luckily, as more and more schools move away from requiring testing, more kids will be able to opt out without restricting options too badly.
It’s so odd that 4 years of actual work is not enough to verify ability to succed and thrive at a given school, but the reults of a single sitting test are considered authoritative.
Ah well. We can look forward to another 6 million Saturday mornings wasted and 12 million #2 pencils nubbed again this year…
Maybe we could get rid of grades then? That would be another option. If we’re going to insist on Standardized test scores, what good are grades? It’s like belts and suspenders
@CaliDad2020 I defend testing as an equalizer and objective measure: I have see kids who play the teachers; share their politics or are good at schmoozing; I have had kids in schools with no weighting and multiple levels of coursework with varying weights and kids and parents play games with course selection. GPA is only a general indicator that a student cares and applies themselves but it has no bearing whatsoever on rigor or ability.
@CaliDad2020 I appreciate your comments & agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but would add two points. First, kids who excel in small public high schools may wonder how “excellent” they really are as students. The test scores might be their first credible – to them and/ or their parents – signal that they should put aside self-doubt & look at elite schools. Second, it may also help the elite school admissions officer overcome a similar doubt from their side. Maybe there’s something comforting for them about a one-and-done aced test.
An issue there is the single sitting aspect. A problem with standardized tests is that the range can be fairly broad for some (not all) students on two different days.
Also if SAT subject tests are used as cut off, it seems 700 is actually kind of unrealistic. For most subject tests it falls at around the 60-75% of test takers. And the number of test takes is already a small portion of the college bound population as, for the most part, only kids attempting selective colleges or selective programs take them. For instance I think 1.6 million kids took the SAT a few years ago and IIRC only 150k or so took the most popular subject test (Math II). For most subject tests the 50% mark - and that’s 50% of the small subset that took them, falls closer to 620-630. It’s hard to argue that only 50% of the kids out of the 1.6 million SAT takers who took the Literature SAT deserved an A in a “decent quality” course. That would mean very few kids in the whole US who scored above a 620 or 630 or whatever on the Lit SAT subject test. That would put the # of “legit” As awarded at a shocking low number.
I guess if we were to try to use SAT subject tests like that, a new standard to the scale would have to be created - or many more kids would have to take it to slide the median down the population scale.
I wonder how the ACT sections break out - since they have a science component that many schools accept in lieu of a subject test. I’ll check that out later.
except stats don’t really bear your last statement out at all. In almost every study I have seen GPA is a very good predictor of ability and success.
Any kid who has taken 4 years of HS has at least 10 - even in the smallest schools with only 1 teacher instructing certain subjects - and more likely 15 - 20 unique teachers in unique situations
To say it “has no bearing” is simply ignoring the vast wealth of data on this subject, and is, if I might be so bold, hard to imagine.
Both those may be true, but again - at what price?
I don’t doubt that SAT/ACT are helpful in fine-tuning admissions. But are they neccessary? Are we just putting suspenders on a belted pant. Given that they are a “bridge to nowhere” cul-de-sac event that cost, in gross, enourmous time, energy and money, are there maybe more interesting, organic ways to get the same effects?
I really shouldn’t be complaining, every one of my kids standardized testing was as good or better than their GPA indicated. And the finances of test taking are not that big a deal for our family. But it sure is/was a waste of time. I hate seeing all those sullen, anxious faes lining up outside the local HS on a Sat morning, 20% of them prepped within an inch of their lives, pencils sharpened, fancy calculators with back-up batteries taped to the back, the other 80% shuffling nervously thinkig “great, this is where I fux it all up… 4 years go down the drain as I freeze at the rows of bubbles.”
It’s a great system for families like mine. It’s a horrible system in aggregate.
Re #191
That is kind of the point – that high school courses in US high schools are commonly lacking in quality.
Obviously the SAT II would have to become way more common than right now for your standard to work, cause as it stands you’re suggesting .6% of the 2.45 million college bound HS seniors qualify for an A in Literature, .3% qualify for an A in World History… 3% for an A in Math (which is the highest # you’ll get from current stats.)
Maybe if more kids took it would curve out more realistically.
@CaliDad2020 I don’t agree that “stats” don’t support my statement. Most education studies are designed to support an end game. Further the SAT and ACT have been dumbed down over the last 20 years as the average high school GPA is now what an A according to data posted here and in the media.
A student with a 3.0 GPA and an 1100 will likely do quite well at a school filled with students with like stats with acurriculum designed for said students. Likewise students with 1450 and 3.8 will probably do quite well in a school filled with like students. I will keep waiting for a recap on 100 students with 4.0 GPA and 1100 SAT and see how they do at MIT or CALTECH or Harvard.
These schools are popular enough that they have the luxury of selecting from excessive numbers of students with both GPA and test scores at the top of the range, so hypotheticals of students there with either GPA or SAT scores significantly lower than the top end are unlikely to exist in real life in significant numbers.
Nevertheless, these three schools are not equivalent in rigor, at least in math.
- Harvard's lowest level math course (MA, MB) covers what is normally a semester of single variable calculus over a year, like high school calculus AB.
- MIT's lowest level math course (18.01) covers what is normally a year of single variable calculus over a semester.
- Caltech's lowest level math course (1a, 1b, 1c) covers what is normally two years of math (single variable and multivariable calculus and linear algebra) in one year, and is proof-based, like having some real analysis sprinkled in.
Lots of students can handle Harvard MA, MB. Far fewer can handle MIT 18.01. Only a tiny number can handle Caltech 1a, 1b, 1c.
That assumes that everyone not currently taking SAT subject tests would score below those who currently do take them. But, since few colleges actually want SAT subject tests, there are probably many strong students who would score well on them if they took them, but currently do not. Of course, how the curve would end up if they did is not really knowable now.
Perhaps larger more realistic data sets may have been more available when UC required three Achievement tests (what SAT subject tests were called then; note that there was an English one that was the predecessor to the SAT essay, though it was a multiple choice grammar test in earlier times), so that large numbers of California students took them.
Still, the existing percentiles suggest that there is much room for improvement in high school course quality in the US.
The Houston Independent School District has a report on AP courses/tests at http://www.houstonisd.org/Page/38527 .
In the 2017 report, figure 7B on page 19, note that A students in AP courses did not score that well on AP exams. For history / social studies and science, the modal AP exam score for A students in AP courses was 1. It was 2 for arts and English, 3 for capstone, 4 for foreign language, and 5 only for math / computer science.
Obviously, that district has a lot of work to do with its AP courses.