<p>Providence College drops the SAT. I just heard this. Why do schools who've relied on the SAT for so long, no longer consider it as important as it once was? Is this a growing trend?</p>
<p>First, let me say that I'm a big fan of PC. I don't know Father Shanley (the new President), but I know most of the Office of Admission staff. They are wonderful people, in my opinion. </p>
<p>The pessimistic answer: This is just a way to get more applications and become more selective.</p>
<p>The optimistic answer: They realize that a four hour exam that has had it's share of problems over the years should not have as prominant place in the admission process as it has in the past. </p>
<p>As for the growing trend part, yes, this is a growing trend. More and more schools are becoming "SAT optional" each year.</p>
<p>There's</a> another thread about this here. There's</a> also an article and discussion in The Chronicle.</p>
<p>Thanks I didn't know. I'll read that as well.</p>
<p>There are a number of nuggets on the PC site. I do like the essence of this position. </p>
<p>
[quote]
<br>
Teaching that Transforms </p>
<p>Welcome to the pages of the Providence College Web site where we focus on our faculty. These men and women have chosen to apply their teaching expertise and scholarship interests to advance undergraduate education.</p>
<p>They daily affirm the importance of the Providence College mission: to provide a transforming liberal arts education shaped and enhanced by Catholic and Dominican values.
Why is this approach to teaching so important?</p>
<p>A teacher cannot put his or her knowledge into the student's mind, but rather can only help the student come to see things for him or herself. Students have to ask questions, compare diverse claims, weigh the evidence for themselves, and arrive at their own conclusions -- discovering new things for themselves on the basis of what they have learned.</p>
<p>At our Catholic and Dominican college, we need to equip our students to parse through the most contentious moral issues of our day -- stem cell research, the nature of death, the value of a human life in a mother's womb, and debates about intelligent design versus evolution -- in a manner that involves the integration of science, philosophy, and religion. A student educated at Providence College ought to be able to integrate all the perspectives in the pursuit of truth.</p>
<p>In order to do that, students need to have good teachers entrusted with the responsibility of guiding them toward what they need to know rather than what they want to know. Universities and their teachers should not treat students as consumers whose demands have to be met for fear of losing market share. Professors need to teach students to want to know what they need to know -- so that they can come to see the truth for themselves and choose what is worthy of choice.</p>
<p>We are indeed blessed to have a vibrant academic community of faculty who teach with this core conviction: both faith and reason are a means to contemplation of truth about God -- and the most powerful force for transforming both self and society is the contemplation of truth.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>However, I do have problems reconciling the recent change regarding the SAT and this statement "Universities and their teachers should not treat students as consumers whose demands have to be met for fear of losing market share."</p>
<p>This is not very different from what comes from Mount Holyoke. One hand, they attempt to justify or explain lower statistics on standardized tests with the school unabated reach for lower income students. Yet, while one would need a roadmap to find studies on lower income accessibility on its website, there is ample evidence that the school has invested small fortunes in hiring ENROLLMENT consultants to identify strategic niches to help balance the books. </p>
<p>Isn't preparing itself for possibly manipulating the published results of standardized tests a sure sign of attention to market share. Being able to play the USNews selectivity game by presenting higher -or LOWER SAT numbers- seems to be dividends. Let's all watch how Middlebury played the game for 2007. The issue of USNews will be out on August 18th!</p>
<p>PS Increasing the selectivity via increased applications is NOT necessarily what yields the highest dividends. The real game consists of manipulating the expected graduation rates/selectivity ratio to maximize the scores.</p>
<p>Xiggi,
I am of the opinion that more schools will be jumping on the SAT optional bandwagon because their their app numbers will increase, their SAT range numbers will go up, and they will get more apps from "full payers". And they are still compared with their own peer institutions in USNWR.</p>
<p>My own rising senior d has good grades in some honors/ap, but hideous test scores. Let's assume her profile had everything that PC looks for in their applicants, minus the test scores. I would venture to guess that if she applied to PC, she might have a good chance of being accepted IF she was a "full pay" applicant. If applicants need money and don't submit scores, would they really be accepted? Or am I just cynical? </p>
<p>I'm not sure what you mean by the "real game" of manipulating expected grad rates and selectivity to better their USNWR scores. Aren't SAT optional schools taking a chance that grad rates will be lower by accepting kids with no standardized test scores? I only ask this because high schools have different grading standards, so it's more difficult to compare gpa. Just curious--I find this trend of SAT optional interesting.</p>
<p>Chocolate, the issue is that a school that participates in the USNews rankings is "supposed" to use a standardized form of data, and typically would use the CDS as basis for the USNews forms. A school that is SAT optional has the luxury to massage the numbers by selectively including or excluding a subset of students. </p>
<p>My opinion on this is that schools that are going SAT optional should simply be placed in a special category -if not barred from the USNEWS altogether. This would not dimimish their statistics nor reputation, but CLEARLY indicate that their data is suspect. Schools that truly believe in the SAT optional method should not mind since they have the best interests of the students at heart. Or is that they want they really have at heart? </p>
<p>Regarding the manipulation of data, and why a school might want a lesser selectivity, the answer is that the expected graduation rates do count for MORE than the selectivity sub-categories. For an illustration of this, one could examine the rankings for Swarthmore, Wellesley, Pomona, and Middlebury. Swarthmore and Pomona, with their leading selectivity scores are simply butchered when it comes to expected graduation rates. On the other hand, Wellesley that is barely in the same league when it comes to selectivity, is handed a large-sized bonus, which in addition to a highly suspect cronyist peer assessment, guarantees the Mona Lisa school to cling to a ranking that is statistically indefensible when looking at every other category. </p>
<p>For further illustration, one may check what happens to the most selective LAC in the country: Harvey Mudd is ranked dead last in the expected graduation category, mostly due to an expected graduation rate of ... close to 100%. In so many words, maximizing the USNEws scores mght involve arbitrarily reduce its own selectivity rate.</p>
<p>Geez, xiggi. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. For years, people have been criticizing Middlebury for only reporting SAT I scores of those who chose to submit them. Now Middlebury is publishing SAT I scores for all applicants, and you dismiss this as an attempt to play with numbers. You've finally gotten what you've been asking for, and you chalk it up to deceit, manipulation, and deception.</p>
<p>Arcadia, is that what Middlebury was doing or will be doing? I thought that they reported the SAT scores of only 290 students in 2004-2005 -or about 50% of the enrollment. </p>
<p>Why don't we wait another three weeks and then debate about the elevator ride Midd has experienced in the USnews rankings. For the record, in previous posts, I discussed how whimsical the rankings of Middlebury had been. </p>
<p>Again, my position on this is extremely clear: schools that introduce any kind of optional reporting should not be listed among the schools that report the scores without restrictions. Would it not be wonderful to see the USNews printing a ranking for the fairtest.org schools or other schools inspired by Reed. Where it would fit in the established "pecking" order of USNews and its readers is anyone guess, especially if the comparisons are based on selectivity. </p>
<p>Further, I also believe that schools that openly profess their distate for the SAT should be precluded to receive the scores from TCB. It should not bother the schools since they pretend not to use the scores for admission and decry the scores as being poor predictors. </p>
<p>Deliberately murkying the waters and trying to present a "holier than thou" image are not really compatible.</p>
<p>What elevator ride? I've seen Middlebury ranked in the top ten pretty consistently for the past 10-15 years or so. It may have dropped from 8th to 11th a few years ago, but that reportedly occurred due to a decrease in faculty salaries not a change in SAT reporting policies. The only real "elevator drop" Middlebury's admissions statistics have experienced occurred this past year when the common data set, college board report etc. showed the class of 2009's mid 50% SAT range as 1280-1480. While this range is "dramatically" lower than than the "highly suspect" 1380-1500 for the class of 2008, the school newspaper has acknowleged this change has occurred because Middlebury, for the first time this year, will include the scores of all students in its reported ranges, not just those who submitted the SAT I as a supplemental test score. However, as you have admitted Xiggi, this change probably won't affect Middlebury's ranking all that greatly seeing as the school will now begin to perform closer to its predicted graduation rate. You really don't need to wait three weeks to see how Middlebury will be reporting its SAT ranges for this year. They already published them months ago in their 2005 common data set and on <a href="http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=850&profileId=6%5B/url%5D">http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=850&profileId=6</a>. In these places last year, the reported ranges were 1380-1500.</p>
<p>Me2, may I suggest spending a bit of time learning about the USNews methodology? And maybe checking the results for the past years. </p>
<p>The 2006 rankings used the 2004 data, meaning the class of 2008. That is where the SAT scores of 1380-1500 were reported (based on 290 matriculants.) The scores thta will used for the 2007 issue are indeed known, and they are supposed to be 1280-1475. Incidentally, how Midd ends up with a 745 as a 75th percentile score shows the extent of the attention and care to the factual integrity of the process.</p>
<p>Midd was ranked 8th in 2006. What was its 2005 ranking? Did it go up or down in 2005? Here are the last three year rankings: 8 -11 - 7 </p>
<p>As I said, let's see how the lower scores impact this year's ranking. My take is that it will be as crooked and ruined by abject geographical cronyism as ever.</p>
<p>PS. Here's a little pointer to the correct information:</p>
<p>For 2004 - Class of 2008 - USNEWS 2006
<a href="http://www.middlebury.edu/NR/rdonlyres/42FAF252-1252-402F-85A4-9DAD72D92B57/0/04cds_c.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.middlebury.edu/NR/rdonlyres/42FAF252-1252-402F-85A4-9DAD72D92B57/0/04cds_c.pdf</a></p>
<p>For 2005 - Class of 2009 - USNEWS 2007
<a href="http://www.middlebury.edu/NR/rdonlyres/F5D55D7F-AD70-45D3-8068-15E2E28D1B8E/0/CDS2005_2006.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.middlebury.edu/NR/rdonlyres/F5D55D7F-AD70-45D3-8068-15E2E28D1B8E/0/CDS2005_2006.pdf</a></p>
<p>Of course, there are other numbers available:</p>
<p>class profile for class of '09, "ALL submited SAT & ACT scores reported, even if a different test type was used for evaluation"
SAT V 620-710
SAT M 610-690
ttl SAT 1230-1400
ACT 29-32</p>
<p>Is Cherry picking popular in Vermont?</p>
<p>The new numbers for the class of 2010 are up as well: <a href="http://www.middlebury.edu/admissions/applying/classprofile/%5B/url%5D">http://www.middlebury.edu/admissions/applying/classprofile/</a></p>
<p>The website clearly states:
"(Note: Mid-50%Range: Half the class scored in this range; 25% scored higher, 25% scored lower. SAT 1's were not required for the Class of 2010 and ranges include all submitted tests, even if a different test type was used for evaluation e.g SAT II's, AP's, IB's or ACT.)"</p>
<p>Midd is reporting the SAT I scores of all matriculating students--even those who chose not to have their SAT I scores used in admissions. They instituted this new reporting policy last year.</p>
<p>So, Arcadia, what is the point? </p>
<p>That NOW there is a chance that Middlebury might start answering the CDS questions correctly? Are kudos warranted for the apparent -and yet to be seen- decision to stop the cherry-picking of scores? Are the numbers of 1280-1475 really credible and why is there a discrepancy with the 1230-1400 reported by the school. Take it as you wish, but when it comes to the numbers reported by Middlebury, a gigantic grain of salt helps accepting them as being anything but whatever they want us to know that particular day. </p>
<p>In addition, what is your evaluation of the prior years, if the resulting drop turns out to be substantial? Does that put an asterisk on the prior scores that overstated the results of Middlebury.</p>
<p>Anyhow, my earlier points were not an attempt to single out Middlebury, but to illustrate WHY the schools that are SAT optional should NOT be included in the USNews rankings. The possibilities for manipulation are simply endless. How much of a tentation to tweak the number in one particular year is anyone's guess. In the case of the prior years for Middlebury, it is clear that the average SAT numbers of the student body did not change, but that it is the selective presentation of the same numbers that did. </p>
<p>Unless you have different numbers, that is my conclusion.</p>
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<p>HIDEOUS. Wow you sound like a nice parent.</p>
<p>My daughter just walked out the door wearing an absolutely hideous pair of shoes.</p>
<p>Green Day Fan -- You are right, I am a nice parent! I adore my smart, talented daughter. But her scores were hideous.</p>
<p>Of course you are.</p>