Unlike Michigan, her school took both her credits for AP Econ. Michigan doesn’t take it for LSA or Engineering and then so on. She also had some dual credit, and then a high enough ACT that she could skip over the first English class and credit was automatically awarded. It was a nice perk. Her sister on the other hand, they’re more stingy as they don’t take certain classes (ie AP US History no matter what), Calc BC they only give you the BC portion, not the AB part because in Engineering they expect everyone to have already taken AB so they’re not giving any credit for it, they don’t give dual credit so she had to retake MVC, and so on, so that one only had one semester worth of credit, but, it’s still credit that is allowing her to earn a minor. So whatever shakes their boat. I’ll be curious to see how things end up with this one and wherever he ends up what is accepted and what isn’t.
UIUC seems to be the best since they give for AP 3 and above…
But the AP allowed my son to double minor and take some classes he might of not been able to… Usually it doesn’t change much for early graduation. Still have to do a senior design project. But it “did” bump us to Junior year status earlier which meant higher fees… 
What, you actually think that departments standardize tests? Seriously?
Dude, after studying, teaching, grading tests, and creating tests for a couple of decades in a half a dozen universities (well, 5), and being associated with a few more, I can actually tell you, factually, that neither colleges, not departments, nor even people who teach the same course on different years have standardized tests. Tests are written by the people who develop the course, and when a course changes hands, the tests change. Even the same instructor will change their tests year to year.
Tests are written to reflect courses, to reflect what was taught, and how it was taught. Furthermore, the majority of tests are short answer or essay, and are often graded each year by different people. Some massive intro courses will have multiple choice, but that is the exception, not the rule. Even those questions are usually based on what that instructor decided was important that year.
So tests, yes, standardized tests, no.
So no, learning to do well on the SATs will not help you during college. Learning to do well in class will.
People who know the material well, do not have testing issues, and understand how the SATs work (what type of questions are asked and what type of answers are required) will do well on the SATs. On average, these sort of students also do well in class. However, many students who do well in class have testing issues, do not exactly “get” the SATs, have bad days, etc, didn’t get to sleep well the night before because they share a room with their grandparents and younger siblings, etc.
Colleges like SATs and ACTs are there because they simplify admissions. It is also easy to pretend that the score means something related to the possible success of a student. it does, but not something that colleges are willing to admit. After all, what college is willing to admit “we prefer to accept students who won’t drop out after a year or two for financial reasons”?
LSAT, MCAT, and GREs are for entry exams to schools, and are not required for graduation from any colleges. Moreover, only 10% or so of all college graduates take one of these tests (and about another 10% go to grad schools which do not require these tests).
So there is something of a difference between “you will need to take standardized tests in order to succeed in college” and “you may need to take standardized tests if you decide to go to some types of grad school”.
Furthermore, grad schools are starting to drop the GREs, because, among other things, they do not, surprise-surprise, predict grad school success:
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaat7550
My opinions though, is that LSAT and MCAT will be better predictors of success, since they require extensive memorization, which is a huge part of being a successful physician or lawyer.
It is probably uncommon, though it occasionally happens that multiple instructors of the same lower level course have shared tests. For example: MATH 151 Common Exam Archive, Department of Mathematics, Texas A&M University
This does not make them similar in nature to the SAT or ACT.
Probably not too surprising. The general GRE can only test lower level stuff because students from all majors have little course work in common. The subject GREs can theoretically help assess major-specific knowledge, but faculty looking at PhD applicants are probably familiar with or can easily find out about the content of upper level courses in the major at the applicants’ undergraduate schools.
Also students who are able to handle Physics C Mechanics in high school (far more than get to E&M) have shown skills that are used in further physics and engineering courses, even if they don’t repeat. Some students are never able to develop those abilities, such as use of basic calculus, formulating a problem mathematically (this is the biggie that not everyone can handle), solving it and interpreting it. This is a significant sorting point. Also, most AP’s cover a semester of college physics in a high school year, giving time for that strong foundation to be laid down. Especially if the student is not highly gifted, that extra time and attention could make the difference.
Yeah, but it’s not that the departments standardizes the exams, but that the professors who teach this course agree to match their speed and requirements to reduce grade complaints. It’s also something that can change from year to year as the instructors change or decide on new directions for the course.
The solutions are also not a bunch of numbers that are the result of calculations. It’s math, so the solution isn’t the number or equation at the end, but the entire process.
These exams can look very different than the exams for MATH 171 by way f template, setup, etc.
“Standardized” implies that all the exams in all of the courses in the department are structured the same, have the same score per question, etc. These instructors are teaching the same course, and for different reasons have decided to match how they teach and how they test. Also, math is so very formalized that there are really only so many ways that an instructor can test what was taught, and only so many ways that the math can be taught.
Certain things are shared because they have been proven to be best practices in the centuries in which instructors have taught fields like math. Convergence and shared successful strategies aren’t the same as “we all need to have the same exam format, with the same types of pre-prepared multiple choice answers, and grading needs to be set up so that the grade distribution for every course is normal”
It is also that the skills and talents that are demonstrated by scoring high on the GRE are not the ones that a student needs to succeed in research.
“colleges, not departments, nor even people who teach the same course on different years have standardized tests”
My point is that you can’t make absolute statements about testing at colleges where you don’t have experience because you can be proven incorrect with a counterfactual example.
“The majority of tests are short answer or essay, and are often graded each year by different people. Some massive intro courses will have multiple choice, but that is the exception, not the rule”
There are very few essays on stem tests, most are combination of short and long problems, maybe some multiple choice or true/false. You seem to equate standardized tests with being multiple choice which isn’t always the case.
Professors for larger classes use one test for the entire class, which is standardized across the department, and by extension the college, at least for that semester or quarter.
Placement tests in math are also standardized, as it’s the same test and the results are used to figure out which math sequence you’re in and could determine whether you graduate or at least change majors.
“Not just STEM majors! I mean, English majors aren’t going to do well if they can’t get past, say, critical theory, music majors aren’t going to do well if they can’t get past music theory, and so on.”
Agree, any course with theory in it is not going to be fun!
It is not necessarily true that different instructors will share tests like at Texas A&M.
It’s not sharing tests, it’s creating a test among the professors that will be used in the course by all students. And it would be curved based on the dept policy, say a C or C+, so the same test taken by everyone and graded on a normal distribution, pretty much a standardized test.
We’ve gotten to a point where people are talking past each other, because we’re talking about “standardized tests”, but we’re using that to refer to different things.
Some are using that term to refer to national tests (and would also, I think, use it to refer to things like statewide NCLB exams); others are using it to refer to exams that are shared at a quite micro level.
In the context of the OP, I would suggest that the first definition is the only one that makes sense. A small handful of faculty in a single department opting to use the same exam for sections of a course is not a “standardized test” in the sense we’re talking about here.
@theloniusmonk My point is that, in my years in academia, I haven’t seen SAT-like tests as part of a undergraduate curriculum.
Also, as an anecdote, my kid’s SAT is in the top 25% of her school, and, while she’s doing great, she’s not doing any better than the kids with higher HSGPAs but SAT scores which are 50-100 points lower than hers.
Class exams have some relevance in the discussion of standardized tests. If a class exam is one of the appropriate measures of how much students have learned relative to each other in that class, why wouldn’t a standardized test be one of the appropriate measures of how much students have learned in some key subjects relative to each other on a wider scale? It’s perfectly fine for some colleges to deemphasize, or even ignore, such tests as they see fit (some with good reasons). But if the test becomes optional, it loses its ability to be a broad measure for the other colleges that consider such scores useful. No professor makes her/his class exam optional that I’m aware of, because an optional exam wouldn’t serve its purpose (nor is it fair). Maybe such practices exist somewhere, but they certainly aren’t widespread, yet.
It is entirely possible that some colleges would like to use a standardized test, but are not satisfied with the SAT or ACT for this purpose.
Subject-based standardized tests, such as subject tests, are closer to college multiple choice tests.
SAT/ACT standardized tests are designed by psychometricians. The test is designed so each question is coded as being part of one category and can be switched for any other in that category, not in terms of content (or in the widest possible term, ie., “arithmetics”, vs. more precise content such as adding, long division, etc.) but in terms of the percentage expected to get it right + tweaks that make that question reach the desired percentage through specific formulation.
Yes, that’s entirely possible (I personally think significant improvements can be made to the tests). However, judging by the rationals stated in this thread by most who oppose standardized testing, their opposition won’t be placated by changes to the standardized tests.
I think you are probably right. The biggest issue for me is whether it will ever be possible to form-fit a test to meet the many needs that groups may be trying to assess. And if people think it is measuring aptitude, appropriateness comes into play.
I think the best “a pro-tester” can hope for is a future of test optional.
@ucbalumnus I am wondering from your name if you are following the UC situation closely? Aren’t they exploring to see if they can make a better standardized test?
Yes. But who knows if they will succeed. Even within just California, there are enough considerations that need to be accounted for that making a standardized test that satisfies all of them is a difficult task.