<p>Roger Dooley wrote, "One effect of the nature of questions and the truncation of the scale is that it provides no differentiation at the ends of the scale." </p>
<p>Well, that's the way I felt when I took the SAT I when I was a high school senior in the Stone Age (the 1970s): it was too easy. I have since heard Chinese graduate students in the United States--and I am talking about students in nonquantitative subjects--deride the math section of the GRE exam as a test of "junior high math"--which is exactly what it is in terms of the standard curriculum in schools in urban areas of China. </p>
<p>But that's less of a problem than it appears, I later realized. What the SAT I test, the ACT test, an IQ test, and really any kind of purported ability test does is sort people into a rank order. It is enough if the ORDINAL characteristics of a test are plausible: if the kids who score higher are plausibly "better at math" than the kids who score lower, more refined details hardly matter. </p>
<p>If one is an admission officer seeking to fill spaces in the math class at one of the top five (ten?) math schools in the United States, which could fill up all their spots in next year's freshmen math classes just with applicants who scored 800 on the SAT math section, then there is a BIT of an issue. Of course looking at an applicant's transcript will reveal which applicant has already received a 5 on the AP Calculus BC exam, and will reveal which applicant has taken a course in abstract algebra at a local college. MIT's application form </p>
<p><a href="http://admissions.mit.edu/resources/pdf/MITpart2.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.mit.edu/resources/pdf/MITpart2.pdf</a> </p>
<p>includes spaces to indicate scores on the AMC 12 </p>
<p><a href="http://www.unl.edu/amc/e-exams/e6-amc12/amc12.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.unl.edu/amc/e-exams/e6-amc12/amc12.html</a> </p>
<p>and AIME </p>
<p><a href="http://www.unl.edu/amc/e-exams/e7-aime/aime.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.unl.edu/amc/e-exams/e7-aime/aime.html</a> </p>
<p>tests, and so does Caltech's application form. </p>
<p><a href="http://admissions.caltech.edu/contact/applying/application.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://admissions.caltech.edu/contact/applying/application.pdf</a> </p>
<p>So the top math colleges know other ways to identify top math students and make distinctions among applicants who share perfect scores on the SAT I math section. </p>
<p>In the book Questions and Admissions: Reflections on 100,000 Admissions Decisions at Stanford (1995), former chief admissions officer Jean H. Fetter tells how Stanford's math faculty finally insisted on having the chance to review applications by students intending to major in math, with the hope of increasing the yield of top math students at Stanford. The Stanford faculty looks at various issues (mostly mentioned above) to identify the math stars among the many high-SAT-scoring applicants to Stanford. Chuck Hughes in his recent book similarly identifies tests and summer programs that Harvard looks at for identifying top math students. The SAT I is only the beginning for standing out as an applicant to a highly selective math program. </p>
<p>By the way, thanks for your administrator messages to the board, and for the board in general. This is a very useful site that I have recommended to many other parents.</p>