I am mostly bothered with the less competitive schools. Our flagship has an acceptance rate of upper 50s. A score of 1350 (Cr+M) was considered a good score and safe for most majors. With concordance that is 1410 meaning you need 700 each subject (assuming a balanced student). That is kind of hard to believe that students now need to score above 700 even for the less selective schools. Too much squeezing of the acceptable range.
@Akqj10 I agree. There is definitely a screw up by CB here. Unfortunately our kids have been unfortunate victims of this fiasco.
@am9799 This is a slightly different issue compared to the tippy top holistic schools but in many ways this is a bigger problem. Many large public universities do not use holistic admissions and SAT scores are a key determinant of acceptance and merit money. The concordance tables could heavily penalise students who only took the new SAT.
@Akqj10 I think that most flagships will adjust to the concordance tables sooner or later into the process, they do have to accept enough students for a full freshman class still. While Old SAT test takers may benefit some, most test takers are New SAT or ACT test takers so I do not think that the disadvantage is all that significant.
@evergreen5 >>It’s much more straightforward to compare math scores alone or even to compare total SAT scores between 1600 and 2400 scales than it is to try to compare Old CR + math to New EBRW + math. But, CB has the page 4 table concording Old and New total scores both on a 1600 scale - feels like something is missing.<<
See the following comment at this link
http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/comparing-act-and-new-sat-scores/
“There are several explanations for the oddities in the score translations that you’ve noted. The first is that the SAT, in moving from a 2400 to a 1600 scale, has fewer points on the new scale from which points on the old scale can be mapped. Therefore gaps (2230 to 2260 to 2280) were inevitable. Second, a shrunken scale results in score compression at the high end; there is a reduced range of possible scores on which high-scoring students can spread out and settle. On the old SAT there were 11 points on the scale from 2300-2400. On the new SAT, these 11 points map to just five points: 1560-1600. Finally, the reasons that his individually concorded scores on the old SAT (700 R and 680 W) concord lower than his combined 730 EBRW on the new SAT are a) scores are inflated across the board from the old to the new based on numerous technical decisions made by the College Board, including the elimination of a guessing penalty and reducing the number of answer choices from 5 to 4, and b) individual scores often concord lower than combined total scores; put simply, fewer students are able to demonstrate commensurate strengths on individual sections (many students have lopsided scores, e.g. Writing significantly higher than Reading).”
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On motivations to take Old vs New: New SAT math is half the total rather than one-third; this is an absolutely critical reason that I would have advised my student to take the New SAT instead of the Old one if my student had been a junior last year.>>
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In DD’s case, she scored 800 easily on both new and old SAT math. The decision to go with the old SAT was based mainly on the fact that much better review materials were available for the old one, as i discussed earlier.
^ Yes, but for somebody who is overwhelmingly better in Math than English, isn’t a 1400 (M 800, EBRW600) new SAT better than a 2000 (800,600,600) on the old test? Anyway, for my daughter, the lack on review materials (other than the 4 Khan Academy tests) for the New SAT was an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
That 2400 scale score converts to a 1410 on the new SAT. Ironically, the conversion is better if the Writing is excluded, in which case it’s 1450 since 600 CR alone concords to 650 EBRW.
^ yes, but while some Unis exclude the Writing, others give it full weight.
@londondad >>I don’t disagree with you on this point, but I think that one big unknown that we just don’t (and won’t) know about UVA’s, William’s and UGa’s admissions criteria is how big an impact SAT scores had on admissions decisions for their EA cohorts.<<
I don’t know the particulars at UVA and Georgia, but Williams sure cares about SATs. It’s an important part of their 14-year winning streak as #1 LAC in USNWR. Obviously not the only thing, but one mustn’t fall behind the competition. For the old SAT, Williams throws out the Writing score and categorizes students into nine different Academic Rating levels, with AR1 (1520-1600 on old SAT, top rigor and GPA near top of class) being the highest. The two main components of AR are SAT score and GPA (assuming high rigor, etc.). You can read about this on Ephblog, according to which, Williams rejects all unhooked applicants with AR3 (top 10%, old SAT of 1390-1450) or worse. So SAT matters, a lot.
However, the ED admits at Williams are very different from RD. In particular, this is when many athletic recruits are locked in with lower AR’s and SAT/ACT scores than are allowed for unhooked. Per Ephblog, Williams gets about 66 athletic “tips” per year, vs a total of just 257 admittees in the most recent ED cycle.
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In the four colleges that have released the EA score distribution, old SAT and ACT scores map very well as per the concordance table but not the New SAT. So, I doubt that it is just an accident that the new SAT mid 50 percentiles are lower than the old SAT scores suggested by the concordance table and there must be a (or more) reason/s for this anomaly. We all know that the three tests are very different (subtle as thy may be) measuring different skills and weighing the sections scores differently. So, equating them is just a crude approximation at the best and Adcoms know that. We also all know many students didn’t want to take chances with the new SAT and decided to take either the old SAT or ACT, so at least the ACT pool this year is not the same as last year. Hopefully in the coming weeks more colleges will reveal how they handled the new SAT scores and I bet they handled it in many different ways. For now, we can only speculate.
- Majority of the new SAT students were hooked and hence the low score.
- Colleges ran out of students with old SAT and ACT students, so they had to dip into new SAT pool even though they knew the new SAT scores are inferior.
- Not that many new SAT students applied, so the score distribution is a statistical aberration.
- Colleges stressed more on GPA and new SAT students had better GPA than the other two groups.
- New SAT students had better ECs than the others, so they had a better chance.
- Colleges knew students took new SAT with less preparation, so they gave them some slack.
- Colleges had less confidence on the concordance tables and decided to ignore them because a) CB was wrong in their PSAT percentiles b) Tables are NOT based on real data and/or c) EA Applicant pool didn’t match the concordance table predictions.
Just curious, has any college reported that it followed the concordance table to the letter during the EA admissions?
From the CB: “More test-takers completed the new SAT from March through June of this year than took the old SAT during the same period in 2015, which is a substantial show of support for the test’s redesign. Nearly 1.36 million test-takers took the new SAT in 2016, compared to 1.18 million who took the old SAT in 2015. This is a jump of approximately 180,000 SAT takers.”
Other speculations: 1) those who applied with old SAT formed a weaker group because their scores were from earlier in their academic careers. Those who applied with the new SAT had the advantage of many more months of studies. 2) the CB concordance is roughly accurate until about 700 in both of the new sections. Then the test gets harder, producing the mid-50% ranges we’ve seen.
@LadyMeowMeow “Other speculations: 1) those who applied with old SAT formed a weaker group because their scores were from earlier in their academic careers.”
At least in my daughter’s case, I believe she was far more motivated to do well on the SAT in October 2016 than she would have been if she had taken it in October 2015.
@bucketDad Mine, too. But with over a million test-takers in the pool, every scenario is in play.
Incidentally, I only made that point about the old SAT forming a weaker group because I wanted to provide a counter-narrative to the idea that somehow most of the highly motivated test-prep kids were all about the old SAT. I actually hate comparing the cohorts and don’t think we can do it intelligently. Your idea of late-season juniors & early-season seniors being more psychologically motivated works for me.
Just my two-pence worth but IMHO
For now, we can only speculate.
- Majority of the new SAT students were hooked and hence the low score. - WRONG
- Colleges ran out of students with old SAT and ACT students, so they had to dip into new SAT pool even though they knew the new SAT scores are inferior. - SERIOUSLY??
- Not that many new SAT students applied, so the score distribution is a statistical aberration. - WRONG
- Colleges stressed more on GPA and new SAT students had better GPA than the other two groups. - PROBABLY WRONG - MORE CORRECT IS THAT UNIS DOWNGRADED SATS IN THE OVERALL LEVEL OF IMPORTANCE THIS YEAR GIVEN THAT CB MADE A MESS OUT OF THE TRANSITION TO THE NEW TEST
- New SAT students had better ECs than the others, so they had a better chance. - I DOUBT THAT THIS COULD EVER BE CORRECT NOT N A MILLION YEARS
- Colleges knew students took new SAT with less preparation, so they gave them some slack. - WRONG, UNIS CARE TOO MUCH ABOUT THEIR RANKINGS TO CUT ANYONE THIS KIND OF "SLACK"
- Colleges had less confidence on the concordance tables and decided to ignore them because a) CB was wrong in their PSAT percentiles b) Tables are NOT based on real data and/or c) EA Applicant pool didn’t match the concordance table predictions. - YES, CORRECT!
- This is basically Keiekei's claim, but I don't see any evidence for it. One could also easily claim that hooked students played safe, and went with old SAT.
- Concordance tables suggest new SAT scores are inferior, isn't it? But it is unlikely that colleges ran out of old SAT applicants.
- As of now, we don't how many applied in each pool.
- One could argue that students with good GPA focused more on the academics and spent less time preparing for SAT/ACT and hence ended up taking the new SAT later.
- Similarly, one could claim students with many ECs had less time to focus on SAT, so postponed taking it;
- Just hypothetical. Yes, why would colleges cut slack for nSAT applicants. Doing so, would be detrimental to their rankings.
- Just hypothetical. We don't know if this speculation is true, unless these colleges admit that that is what they did. But I am surprised that these colleges dared not to play safe and admitted many “low” scoring new SAT applicants, and even reporting it publicly. Selecting more oSAT applicants would have boosted their overall ‘stats’ after converting to new SAT scores. In any case, I will not be surprised if many other colleges bought into the concordance tables and went with the ‘IBM’ solution.
@LadyMeowMeow, your first speculation doesn’t explain the discrepancy in the admission of nSAT applicants (may be a counter claim for keiekei’s position) but your second speculation is a possibility.
@LookingFforward, four colleges having a lower mid-range for nSAT certainly tells something (not zip), even though there is a lot to learn more about it.
@londondad Regarding #7, all of the anecdotal evidence we’ve seen on CC from students who took both the new SAT and ACT or old SAT suggests the concordance is way off. Plenty of anecdotal evidence has been cited in this discussion…no reason to stop now.
^ @bucketdad Yes, I fully agree with you on that point.
7 To clarify, what is hypothetical is whether the 4 colleges ignored the nSAT concordance tables leading to the admission of ‘relatively lower’ nSAT applicants and not, whether the tables are reliable or not (I think, they're unreliable).
@londondad You might want to take a look at this:
http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/625983.page
It’s a thread started by someone who appears to be an admissions officer at school <15% admit rate. She makes some interesting comments about the problems with the concordance tables and the new SAT scores skewing low on the 2-3 page in:
“SAT’s concordance tables don’t seem very accurate. The New SAT scores we’ve gotten are noticeably lower than the Old SAT scores.”
She believes it’s mostly due to the lack of prep materials for the new test.
@bucketDad Thank you for posting this. It was helpful. 
S has a 1490 on the new SAT (760V/730M) and we’re dithering over whether or not he should retake. We’re finding it difficult to contextualize his score given the cough variety of info / opinions on how new SAT scores stack up against the old.
bangs head against wall
We are leaning toward a retake to get the Math score to 750 or higher, and to take advantage of superscoring. S is targeting two competitive scholarships where his 1490 just barely qualifies.
^^ He could always just take the ACT, then you’ll know where he stands for sure.