<p>Single-sitting SAT or ACT is a terrible idea.
I mean, come on, look at the Indian Institute of Technology’s Joint Entrance Examination. Admission rate into IIT is somewhere between 2 and 3 percent, and it’s all based on performance in a SINGLE test. Do you really want that for US schools?</p>
<p>To even want a single-sitting test taking is just as bad as the current system. As much as I dislike the standardized test taking, I rather deal with how it is now rather than have a single-sitting . </p>
<p>No one is perfect and very few get quite a high score. If I recall correctly, the national SAT average score is a 1500,no? </p>
<p>Also, I feel as though single-sitting will just breed more people into saving up money to pay someone to take test for them, more cheating methods created,etc etc.</p>
<p>“So maybe the kid who takes the test once and gets 600 CR has that score reported-- and if a kid takes the test twice and gets a 700 CR the 2nd time around, then rather than a 700 being reported to colleges – the college board reports the 650 average (or 650 reduced by, say, 2% based on the repeat administration). Of course there would be howls of protest and that would probably give an added boost to the test-prep industry (which can’t be accounted for) … but it would definitely produce more reliable data for the college ad coms, if in fact that was their goal.”</p>
<p>Indeed howls of protests will occur and people will continue to try taking test to make it higher…but honestly, if one improves from retakes, they improve good for them. </p>
<p>In a way, maybe it’s just my negative thinking but, some just don’t care about how valid the numbers are, some care only about the money gained in the end.</p>
<p>I am sorry but I just can’t see anything “fair” about having a test that (from how many of my fellow peers view it as) determines where they will be going in life and whether or not they can pursue a higher education.</p>
<p>And imagine , as someone previously mentioned, if someone was sick and did bad. Tough luck for them?They shouldn’t have a chance at college then because they just so happened to get sick at the wrong time? </p>
<p>Anything can happen on test day.</p>
<p>Sorry if I don’t make any sense.</p>
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<p>Highly debatable … in practice, and irrelevant in the existing context! </p>
<p>The PSAT has only one official take per student. Allowing unlimited retakes is trivial as you cannot control …unlimited practices with real tests. It is usually a silly practice to program “practices” on an official administration. </p>
<p>Does one need to remember who owns and controls the College Board? Happens to be the same folks who are openly super scoring individual scores or permitting score choice. </p>
<p>Colleges have all the freedom to INTERPRET the scores as they wish. Increasing the merits of URM, weighing SES, or averaging or weighing down the scores of serial candidates. They DO NOT changes in the reporting as they can request all scores to be reported. After all, THEY are the true clients of TCB and ACT. Parents just happen to pay for the tests. We have the tests the colleges want! </p>
<p>The reality is quite simple. Adcoms are mostly happy with the current status of standardized tests, and this despite a few misguided and futile attempts to overhaul the current tests. </p>
<p>With all due respect, Voice, you clearly don’t know much about college athletic recruiting.</p>
<p>@SammyxB
The SAT by itself is NOT powerful enough to determine what direction one takes in life. Heck, not even high school GPA or performance are. “Poor test takers” or students who didn’t focus throughout high school can still prove themselves at a local CC and then transfer to excellent universities.
Take for example, the OP of this thread. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-texas-austin/1626330-chance-a-oos-ca-cc-transfer-student-for-ut-austin-petroleum-engineering.html#latest”>http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-texas-austin/1626330-chance-a-oos-ca-cc-transfer-student-for-ut-austin-petroleum-engineering.html#latest</a></p>
<p>Slacker during high school, even though he had a passion. Managed a 4.0 at a community college and is now headed to UT Austin for Petroleum Engineering.</p>
<p>Xiggi, we don’t know that “mostly happy with the current status of standardized tests.” It’s a sellers market and that’s all they get. They may accept them and work with them, but there’s so much dissatisfaction with, eg, the W, that many have been discounting it or ignoring it. Or only using it in extremes. There are schools on the TO list that are begging for bodies, but also some fine colleges that decided standardized tests are not the be all and end all. </p>
<p>Fredjan, just saying: the common argument about SATs, even here, is that they predict college gpa. With some exceptions, who cares about college gpa? It always reminds me of the question, paraphrased: what do you call the person who was last in his class at Harvard? A Harvard graduate. I’m all for a rigorous college experience and learning to meet high standards, but both of mine attended a rigorous college, one did quite well, the other struggled- and I consider them both successfully educated. That’s not just the degree, it was the educational experience. </p>
<p>Sue22, that comment about athletic recruiting is worth expounding upon. Why do you disagree with voice?</p>
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<p>Probably lots of colleges do not think that the current state of standardized testing is optimal for their admissions needs, but they “go with the flow” (i.e. accept either the SAT or ACT, although they may emphasize different sections, like weighting writing heavily or not at all) because doing otherwise (e.g. having their own admissions tests, accepting only one of the SAT or ACT, requiring SAT subject tests, etc.) would unintentionally screen out too many applicants whom they otherwise would likely admit. Being test-optional is one of the few ways to be different in standardized testing policy that does not have this effect, but even among these schools, the reasons for that policy vary.</p>
<p>The story of the W addition is telling! :)</p>
<p>@rhandco - I cannot speak for @Sue22, but IMO it is light years apart. Coaches have game film to look at for their possible recruits. There is nothing really equivalent for students. Grades and test scores are good indicators for sure, but they are still not the same thing as trying to fill a quarterback spot, or point guard, etc. These kinds of roles are fairly specific. Academics are much more nebulous and wide-ranging. Sure, sometimes people get recruited for sports on general athletic ability, but far more often it is because they have demonstrated they are good at a particular position. We don’t, and shouldn’t, generally try to get so many history majors, or Asian Studies majors. Yes, there is an interest in balancing people that express an interest in business, engineering, architecture, etc. But that is far more vague and unpredictable on an individual basis that recruiting a tight end. Besides, the current system seems to take care of that issue pretty well. Some universities do it by having people apply to a School of Business or a School of Engineering, others do it through the general admission process.</p>
<p>Contrast this with athletics where coaches make visits to watch the athletes play, visit their homes, pretty much always offer athletic scholarships for the major sports, etc. And this is to fill maybe 20-40 slots a year among different sports. Can you imagine anything equivalent for hundreds or, usually, thousands of slots for academics? It is absurd.</p>
<p>Let’s examine voiceofreason’s post in some detail.
But coaches also cast a wide net by looking at athletes from all over their region or even all over the country or, in the case of basketball especially, all over the world. So I am rather failing to see the difference. The coaches sift through all the players and make offers to the ones they want, and admissions does exactly the same thing. I see little difference from that aspect. It is just that the coaches have the ability to get into much more detail and recruit far more personally once they have things narrowed down, because the numbers are much smaller.
Again, when a coach expands his recruiting area from the state to the region, or the region to the country, they are doing the same thing. It is just that no one publishes on an annual report the percent of recruited kids that take the offers. Instead the coach is judged by how the recruits he gets perform. Of course colleges are eventually judged by how their students perform in some aspects, mostly retention and graduation rates. No one (yet) judges a school by the average GPA when they finish college. There are attempts at outcome based evaluations, but these are fraught with difficulties. The same kind of thing that separates ease of evaluating the W-L record of a team from the outcome of an academic education is what makes recruiting athletes so different than recruiting academic students.</p>
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Simply absurd. First of all, I think recruit is not the right word for what these schools do. They create awareness, they invite people to apply. There is no question that for “regular” students this is a far more blunt process than recruiting athletes, for the reasons I have already given. But only the most naive think they are being recruited by this process. I still get mailers with offers to come test drive certain cars. I don’t think I am being recruited to buy that car, I am being advertised to. Schools are different, sure, but in this aspect not that different. Stanford has no need to waste money recruiting students for the sake of getting their numbers up, nor do other schools. The marketing is already targeted to some degree. These schools buy lists based on PSAT scores above a certain level, SAT scores above certain levels. Reported GPA above certain levels. Those who attend certain academic summer programs. The criteria is quite varied for every school that markets themselves, and of course they cast a wider net rather than a narrower one. There are hidden gems everywhere, and they do indeed have a great interest in diversifying their classes. There is a lot of pressure to do so, and many are strong believers in it of their own volition. To that extent and to get back to the very original topic, some schools think that requiring test scores gets in the way of broadening the applicant pool. They have one philosophy, most still think the test scores are useful, apparently.</p>
<p>@Noteworthy Good point, well said. </p>
<p>For years, I have always felt that standardized tests, especially those that are designed to be so tightly time sensitive as to prevent most people from completing them, are NOT that correlative with college success. The same can be said for graduate level exams too. I would love to think that the colleges are eliminating the requirement for standardized tests because they have come to realize this fact. HOWEVER, I don’t think that is the reason.</p>
<p>The real reason is their desire for more minorities in school. Right now the climate for affirmative action isn’t good. State referendums have been overturning them. Universities have had long battles in court over giving racial preference in admission. The problem is that standardized tests tend to favor those of upper incomes. Since many minorities particularly those of Black and Hispanic origin aren’t in the upper income brackets, they tend to do worse then their non minority counterparts. Moreover, some minorities, such as Asians, tend to do extremely well and better overall then then other groups. By eliminating the standardized tests, I believe that colleges can then take people with strong GPAs that wouldn’t normally do well on standardized tests. What do you think?</p>
<p>Let’s just have a contest. Sure, this will never happen, but let’s play pretend.</p>
<p>MIT decides to have 2 separate classes in 2015. Half of the students are admitted on the basis of 50% test scores/50% GPA (of course GPA will have to have a weighting to balance as best as possible). The other Half gets admitted in a system where all they can use is subjective measures. 25% GPA (still subjective as it is based on teacher’s opinions of results)/25% interview/25% ECs/25% how the admissions officer feels about the candidate.</p>
<p>Now sit back and wait to see the results. The profs do not know who is who and they all take the same classes and do the same work and compete for the same jobs.</p>
<h2>Which group do you suppose will do better at MIT? </h2>
<p>GPAs can and are heavily dependent upon factors that have nothing to do with student performance. GPA is subject to teacher biases on gender, race, attire, you name it. GPA is also influenced by helicopter parenting (shocking but there are parents who actually do their kids homework and nag teachers for not giving Johnny or Janie an A). Some teachers don’t want to fight the battle so they give good grades to everyone to boost self-esteem. We see these kids fail often when given a knowledge test because they did not get the knowledge, just a self-esteem boost. Even the testing that is part of the GPA is often the type where students cram for the test, spew out the answers (too frequently from a ‘pre-test’ that gives them the questions) and then 2 weeks later the student has no recollection of the information that was tested. This type of problem lumps the truly smart kids in with the manipulators, cheaters and schmoozers. The whole thing becomes garbled and you really have no idea which kids can really handle the rigor. Other schools have a much cleaner system and GPAs there may be a great reflection of hard-working intelligent kids. The problem is that there is no consistency of measurement.</p>
<p>Now, there are certainly cases of a few individuals who simply cannot for whatever reason handle the stress of a test. But I would much rather have a student with high test scores and a high GPA than one with mediocre test scores and a high GPA.</p>
<p>@taxguy</p>
<ol>
<li><p>“they have come to realize this fact”
This is not a fact; please keep your opinions separate from proven information. </p></li>
<li><p>“Moreover, some minorities, such as Asians, tend to do extremely well and better overall then then other groups”
This isn’t some inherent Asian trait; Asians as a whole likely tend to prepare more and place more emphasis on their careers. Why should we punish this mentality?</p></li>
<li><p>“people with strong GPAs that wouldn’t normally do well on standardized tests”
What does this even mean? How does one acquire a strong GPA (which are based mainly on testing) without being able to take tests well? A 4.0 in a failing district does not instantly give one the title of “college ready”, whereas succeeding on a national exam tailored to fit a certain level of thought does appear to (or at least, much moreso than the raw GPA data). Those of upper incomes may have more prep available, but I think everyone can afford to save up $10 for the blue book, which is arguably the most useful prep material. Plus, many do not even need significant prep to do well on the exam; the type of people that these universities need are the ones who can do well on them without significant prep. A poor minority is not inherently given a 200 point deduction on the test; if anything, it’s an equalizer. I have seen people with lower SES score very high and people with very high SES score very low, it’s entirely up to the individual to succeed, and it’s this drive to succeed that breeds success in college.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>“By eliminating the standardized tests, I believe that colleges can then take people with strong GPAs that wouldn’t normally do well on standardized tests. What do you think?”</p>
<p>Many (not all) strong GPAs came from inflation or cheating of some sort. Heck, standardized testing scores,some of them, came from cheating as well</p>
<p>Many (not all) strong GPAs came from inflation or cheating of some sort. You may know some kids who cheated, but please don’t try to generalize. You only know the kids you know or some you heard of.</p>
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<p>Most selective colleges do use standardized tests. The reason for having them in the first place is that they do not fully trust the rigor level and grading standards of US high schools, unlike in some other countries like Canada (where high school courses are apparently well enough standardized at the provincial level that Canadian universities do not require domestic students to take external standardized tests) or the UK (where the high school final exams are standardized tests).</p>
<p>The test optional schools can “free ride” on the standardized tests, since, for an applicant without standardized test scores, they can check the high school’s profile (including its standardized test and college admission results) in order to estimate how much credibility courses and grades from that high school carry.</p>
<p>the way i see it is just because you get a good score on those test does not mean that your smart or not because what if a student studied only how to pass the test for a year or even a few months the student will be able to pass the test because he/she knows the test inside and out but that again does not mean the student is smart so the test optional route is good because if you let the student into the school and tell the student that for each class you need at least a B or a C to pass the student will work towards that or be dropped from the school </p>
<p>In addition to test-optionality, add SUPER-SCORING to the farce. Super-scoring is like photoshopping one’s photo to post on a dating website. </p>
<p>@CP9165, your post #157 speaks volumes…</p>