Some states give the SAT or the ACT to every 11th grader. That really brings the numbers down as many of those students aren’t going to college, didn’t have any test prep, and really don’t care. I think the Colorado ACT number was 20 or 21. Some schools, of course, have much higher numbers but that’s about 25 because even if a good portion is going to college, the highest person can only get a 36 and needs to offset all the 21’s, 18’s and even 15’s.
For clarity I have basically seen three different formats through my D’s application process:
- Direct admit to specific engineering major and start taking some classes in specific major first year
- All go through same general first-year program and then apply to specific major, but there is no limitation issue on number of seats in the major, so as long as student has met the minimum grade requirements in the first-year courses they are able to be in their specific major of choice
- All go through same first-year program and then apply to specific major, but there is limitation issue on number of seats in the specific majors so even if student has met or exceeded minimum requirements in first-year courses may not get into 1st or even 2nd choice specific major.
It’s format 3) that comes with the risk that even if you were successful in first year courses, you still could not get into desired majors.
This does not just happen in engineering. The business school at UNC is secondary admit and they do not currently have enough seats for all the students that would be qualified. However, UNC considers overall first year university GPA and does not factor in AP scores as if they were letter grades like NCSU engineering does. NCSU creates a GPA using only 5-6 specific classes and AP scores if you have ones that would cover some of those 5-6 and want to use them.
It’s the treating AP scores like letter grades that is odd to me. What if a student just had a bad testing day or like mine had to take them during the CB’s COVID scramble, which did not exactly go smoothly? Now we are back to the question of is a single test score a good measure of predicted success or not.
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PA does not. We have our own Keystone tests. TBH I wish we would switch to the ACT as that would be far easier than the 4 days per year we devote to testing now - one morning or afternoon and done! (Never heard of the SAT being state wide - where does that happen?)
See this list:
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Thanks for that link! Maybe PA will opt for one of those two tests someday vs our Keystones.
I agree that it’s all relative and that scores are just one piece of a much larger puzzle. I also agree that scores aren’t dispositive, but are used to confirm the other elements of the application. That said, I stand by my point that scores put the grades in context. At D’s private HS, the middle 50% is 1360-1530, so the fact that the grades are also high (average is around a 91/92 on 100 point scale), makes sense. I’m not denying that I live in a bubble; I do. I’m just saying that if colleges were to look at our HS and wonder about grade inflation, I think the test scores offer another data point that the student body is very strong. Without the scores, colleges might wonder why most kids (in a class of about 75) have such high grades and might think there’s grade inflation. In fact, the kids work very hard for their grades and come out very well prepared for college.
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Currently, about 45% HS students get A’s.
As a result, the test scores don’t really matter for the top students at your school (A’s are likely known as “hard A’s”), but rather put the B’s in context (if the bottom of the middle 50% score 1360, one can imagine B’s at that school should be evaluated as worthy of A’s in most cases, and C’s as B’s, which should result in vastly better admission results for the not-top-25% students than would happen at regular private or public schools.) Everyone wins. 
Some colleges “track” students, so they know if the students’ college performance matches expectations. The enrollment management officers and all the services tracking students have reams of data about various feeder schools.
Ivies know that a student at a school where the average is 17, with x,y,z characteristics, a 4.0 UW, and a 28 ACT will do quite well, private colleges with links to prep schools will know that a student with a 2.8 UW+a 1320 SAT will likely do just fine at their institution whereas a 2.8 UW from another school is likely to be in over their head academically.
Your school’s results are very impressive albeit totally atypical
(Typical, if all test, would be scores in the 700s for the bottom 25%, 850-1100 for the middle 50%, and 1200-1350 for the top students, with a few exceptional students hitting 1380-1400.)
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The SAT and the ACT are likely in financial trouble. They’re probably figuring out a new business model and offering “state tests” for 11th and 12th graders is an easy pivot - easier for the ACT than the SAT though. So, there may indeed be an ACT statewide test rather than Keystones.
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Colorado switched from ACT (was one of the first states to use ACT as the NCLB test for 11th graders) to the SAT. I’m SURE there were financial reasons.
Florida gives all the AP tests for free. I’m SURE there is a financial break given by the college board and Florida isn’t paying $100/test.
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I see it as cheaper than the Keystones and far easier for the school and kids logistically.
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I don’t think so: if there’s no timing and students can pace themselves, the incentive will be strong for many average-to-above average students to be done in 2 hours instead of 3.5. Lots of students will simply bubble in whatever once they get tired, and leave. Most will likely give up after 3 hours.
Only the really dedicated will stay focused on every question and stay till the end of the question booklet, whenever that is.
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@MYOS1634 I wish I had spoken to you last year when D20 was applying to college! I would have been less nervous! 
You make an interesting point about the scores putting the Bs into context (even more than the As). Further, some teachers are known to be tough graders, so even within a given course, there will be grade variability between sections. Grading is so subjective and some seem to forget the math in grade calculation (for instance, some teachers give lots of 5 or 10 point assignments, so even one mistake gives you a 80 or 90–get a few of those and it’s hard to lift your grade). That’s one of the reasons that I think test scores can be helpful. If a kid gets a 780 on the verbal but a 90 in English, the school can assume the teacher is tough.
You’re correct that I think colleges tend to go deeper into the class at D’s school than at our local public HS. Overall, college placements are very good and kids lots of merit money.
P.S.: I found your breakdown of typical scores at a HS really interesting. This betrays the degree to which I’m in a bubble, but I didn’t realize how many students score below 1000 or 1100. It’s also interesting to know that 45% of HS students gets As. Do you mean a 4.0? Again, I realize I’m out of touch, but if 45% get As, but the average SAT is around 1050, that really seems like a disconnect to me. I would have expected the B/C students (average) to get average scores.
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At all universities, there are dedicated international region readers (the problem may be more accute at small colleges if there’s only one Reader for the entire world.) Many systems are French-Patterned or British-patterned, plus many international schools follow the IBD, so that simplifies things.
The “basic” reviewers at large, public universities do not review full applications. It’s more like “assembly line work”. They’re temps for the most part, but well-trained for their part of the “assembly”.
For instance:
Reader 1 checks that basic entrance requirements are met.
Reader 2 has a grid to evaluate rigor, things to check (2? 3? 4? 5+ years of Foreign Language? Math through Algebra2? Precalculus? Calculus? 4 years overall or just 3?)
Reader 3 recalculates weighted GPAs.
Etc…
At the end, you have a sort of score that is then compared to a “bucket” for the specific major or college the student applied to and/or the “bucket” the student is part of (a specific county, a specific HS, a specific group such as first-gen…) At that point, there’s a summary of key points and the summary may or may not go to a “full reader”.
“Assembly” readers are trained for one specific task and don’t really know any other tasks in the “assembly line”, nor do they know who they evaluate or how the application process turns out for them.
Only a limited number of permanent professionals have access to the full application and the final result.
By contrast, at top institutions, after being placed in a “bucket” or “pool”, the full application is often reviewed twice or by 2 people or a junior permanent adcom+a senior adcom…, providing a summary card, generally against the institution’s own criteria, institutional needs, and priorities and compared to the “summary”, especially at universities where essays are an important factor and/or standardized tests are de-emphasized. The basic questions are, Round 1, Can s/he do the work? and Round 2, Do we want him/her here rather than Z, and why?
(BTW, UCB and UCLA are more holistic than many large universities, as are UVA and UMich).
At some universities such as many Midwestern or Southern public universities, where most get in on stats alone (no essay or essay has little weight in final decision), the summary may be the main tool to decide who gets in or not.
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There is also a hybrid between 2) and 3) above, which is that first year engineering students meeting a specified minimum GPA are automatically admitted to the major of their choice, but others must go through a competitive admission process. This hybrid exists at colleges like Virginia Tech (3.0), Purdue (3.2), Minnesota (3.2), Texas A&M (3.5, although there have been claims that it will be raised).
For state testing, wouldn’t the SAT subject tests have been a better measure of achievement? E.g. students take one math, literature (English), one science, one history, and one foreign language, as appropriate to the courses the student has completed in school.
Of course, now that the SAT subject tests are no longer offered, that option is no longer available.
Since you mention a-g courses (a term specific to UCs and CSUs), it looks like you are guessing what UC admissions reading process is like, which is not like that at all. Basically, each UC application is presented in full (including GPAs recalculated by computer and presumably indications of a-g requirement fulfillment from the embedded SRAR in the application) to two readers, each of whom assigns a 1 to 5 score (1 = best). If they disagree by too much, a third senior reader breaks the tie. After that, all applications are ranked by the reading scores within campus, division, or major (however it is done at the campus) to determine who gets admitted. Where a group with the same scores crosses the cutoff, tie-breaking procedures are used. See the Hout report. Note that the centralized part of ranking applicants by initial reading scores can mostly be done by computer, so an increase in applications does not has as big scaling problems as it does at colleges where there is a full committee read of all applications after the initial readings.
Yes, there may be exceptions at the front end for applicants with unusual high school records (e.g. international high schools), but most UC applications come from California or other domestic applicants.
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I am so sorry and do apologize. I will correct “a-g” above so as not to lead readers to the wrong conclusions. I used it as a shorthand for “required courses” which was really stupid since “a-g” is only used for CA public universities… AARGH. No idea what got through my mind when I was typing…
The process I described is the one becoming most common among large public universities, especially those that aren’t mega selective, but it doesn’t apply to UCs (I don’t know for the CSUs, they’d seem like the universities that’d use that process, too.) The system is supposed to be faster, more streamlined, etc. and, I assume, means the app readers aren’t paid as much since they’d do just one basic skill instead of a complex task.
HOWEVER it doesn’t apply to UCs, which use the “traditional” process that most highly selective and private schools use, ie., a reader who deals with the full application from beginning to end, a second reader, a summary card, with “first cuts” and then a big discussion for the remaining applicants.
In that system many universities use “buckets” or “batches” or “pools”, meaning all applications that are read are within one particular group (ie., coach-supported athletes, first gen, etc.) and/or from one region (application readers tend to specialize in specific areas, so that they know some HS very well and can quickly determine how that student compares to students from that HS for the past 3 years as well as their classmates that year. They also have some GCs phone numbers, etc.) Universities with the “assembly line” system use a modified version of this. In both cases, it means there’s a quick “pre-read” so the file is tagged blue, red, green or A/B/C/D (whatever quick system is used for tagging)… before it’s placed in its “bucket/pool/batch”.
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I agree. I’m not sure why the Subject Tests were scrapped, it seems very short-sighted - I understand that they were not used very much for admission purpose anymore, but since mass testing for college admissions is likely to disappear if universities find after 2 admission cycles that they could admit students without them while attracting more apps or more applicants that previously didn’t apply from categories seen as desirable, re-purposing the subject tests as “national benchmark final exams” with Math, English + 1-2 exam(s) of choice, would have served the ColleageBoard well, in part because their business models rests on getting data on all these test takers and having access to a state’s HS student population would have been pretty interesting. They have such a large batch of questions and the purpose would simply be to “pass” in order to be “certified” (so that getting a score wouldn’t really matter much), it’d seem like an easy pivot.
Yes, about half of college-going HS students score below 1000, usually in the 850-1050 range (with about 20-25% scoring below 850, who are typically going to community college.)
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Doesn’t this process lead to an effective cap (even “quota”) in each bucket? Presumably AOs for each bucket would advance only a portion (likely a somewhat consistent percentage) of the students in the bucket.