SAT concordance table - compare old and new SAT scores

@flalover Are you talking about the old 1600 scale or the old 2400 scale. An 1150 on the new SAT equals 1590 on the old SAT 2400 scale. Are you saying you thought there were schools that would accept students with an 1150 but not with a 1080? That doesn’t seem terribly likely to me. What sorts of schools is your son trying to get into? I think most schools would consider those scores to be in the same general range.

I am leaning toward encouraging my HS Junior to just focus on the ACT, because of the historical acceptance data available (in Common Data Sets, Naviance, etc.). I feel this way she will have a better (and more realistic) idea of where she stands in admissions chances.

Is this misguided thinking? Should she just go off the concordance data compiled by Compass Prep, posted a while back in this thread?

@craspedia, it depends on a few factors: 1) whether or not you are going to encourage your D to prep for and take the National Merit Qualifying Test; 2) how many admission departments are looking at the concordance tables; and 3) how many college admissions cycles beyond 2017 will include the old SAT.

With regard to 1), your D will have to take the PSAT. If named a semi-finalist, then she will need to take the SAT in order to determine a “confirming score” and advance to finalist. With regard to 2) no one knows the answer to this one for sure. However, CompassPrep thinks the colleges WILL be relying on the concordance at least this year since both versions of the test are accepted (with maybe one or two exceptions). How else are they going to be able to compare scores? The good news for your D is that she won’t be applying till a year from now. By then, 3) the majority of colleges - perhaps all - will ONLY be accepting the revised version of the SAT. While the concordance tables will still be available for reference, only the ACT comparison will be relevant. And of course colleges will have a pretty big data set of revised scores from the prior year.

So to summarize, while it makes sense to have avoided the SAT this year (class of 2017), the same strategy isn’t quite as applicable to class of 2018 and beyond.

More broadly, however, is whether your D knows at this point which test she will be better at. There is only one way to find that out and that’s to take a practice test of each. The PSAT serves as a pretty good gauge of how well the tester will do on the SAT so consider encouraging that for this October. If your D wants to go for National Merit, encourage her to use the free materials on Khan Academy. A practice ACT can be done for free or for a minimal charge at most prep companies.

@craspedia, I want to amend what I said in post 242 above. Just attended a college info. session with my daughter this evening and they will be accepting the old SAT for as long as the scores are valid. The admissions rep. mentioned a “five year period”. Didn’t realize it was that long! At any rate, some colleges might opt to accept the old scores if still valid, although guessing that the overwhelming majority of SAT scores submitted next year will be from the new test. I don’t think colleges are REQUIRED to accept the old scores - VTech, for instance, is not accepting old scores this year at all.

Dumb move on Virginia Tech’s part. Many of the stronger students only took the old SAT to avoid potential issues with the new one.

@mamalot I guess I haven’t researched the benefits of National Merit to know enough about why it would be something to strive for.

She never took the old SAT so that doesn’t apply.

I’m also wondering, how are SAT prep classes even giving sample tests of the new test? Are there enough in existence? One SAT class nearby is 14 weeks long, giving a test a week. I don’t know how they even have 14 sample tests to give?

@craspedia yes there are at least 4 prep tests released by College Board for SAT and one for PSAT. And CB has partnered with Kahn Academy to provide free online prep. My D3 used Kahn rather than going to a $$$ prep expert and she met her PSAT and SAT goals. When you take the PSAT, Kahn links to your test and customizes the prep for the SAT. It seemed to be a pretty good tool for our kid.

Please keep in mind that your standardized test score is just one part of your application. If you did well on the old SAT and pretty well on the new SAT and well on the ACT, you don’t have to invest a lot of time in trying to figure out which score is the score that will get you into your dream school. Taking a challenging class schedule, achieving a strong GPA, great essays and ECs that demonstrate the passion you have in your areas of interest are more important that the differential between standardized test scores. Best of luck to all.

Most of the schools that we have visited this summer seem to be ignoring the concordance tables. Rather, the respond to my question as @glido did above or they stress that they will look at your score on that specific test in the context of how well you did on that test (I assume looking at percentiles).

Are percentiles evan available for the new test yet? I haven’t seen a table yet.

It’s on CBs website

Thanks @jym626 I just found the “Understanding Scores May 2016” document. Didn’t realize it was available yet.

Interesting. According to the New SAT percentile tables my D3 scored at the top of the 98th for Total Score - User Group. Her section scores for EBRW and Math place her squarely at 98th or at the bottom of 98th.

In contrast, her concorded percentiles are bottom of 98th for Total Score (both 2400 and 1600 basis) and 96th for section scores (one at the bottom, one in the middle, and one at the top). To arrive at “concorded percentiles” I just looked up the most recent old percentile tables (2015) for her concorded scores.

The CB concordance tables were supposed to represent equi-percentiles; that is, your score on the new test concords to the score on the old test that represents the same percentile as you received on the new test (they word it a bit more elegantly than I just did!). Either they DIDN’T in fact do this, or - more likely - those percentile tables in the “Understanding your SAT Scores May 2016” document contains inaccurate User percentiles. (I’m not even looking at the National Representative Sample because that’s irrelevant for comparison or college-bound purposes).

It begs the question of exactly HOW did they come up with those concordance tables if the percentiles they are reporting don’t match the concorded ones. Do they use another set of percentiles to do the concordance? If so, how did they generate that other set and why didn’t they disclose it?

Those User percentiles aren’t accurate, at least as they pertain to a certain part of the distribution. Not sure how colleges are going to be able to rely on them. This seems to underscore that ADCOMS will have no choice but to rely on the concordance tables.

@mamelot From what I have heard, the opposite is true. Some adcoms I spoke to are choosing not to follow the concordance tables and to choose their own way to evaluate the test results.

This is a really bad approach.

It takes some statistical talent to create valid concordance tables, and I expect that the SAT has the requisite statistical talent. On the other hand, adcoms have no basis at all, except some vague feeling, for deciding that the percentiles before and after the switch-over should be comparable. For various reasons, this can be untrue.

@hebegebe But have you looked at the concordance tables done by College Board? They don’t exactly inspire confidence.

^ Exactly!

@itsgettingreal17 and @londondad I’m not sure how we can assess the integrity of the concordance tables at this point. Nor can Adcoms.

I kinda doubt that colleges are going to wing it when it comes to how to interpret a set of STANDARDIZED results. But it is the case that each score might tell more than one story depending on which set of percentages the colleges opt to look at. My guess is that how closely the college looks into the percentiles and the concordances is strongly correlated with how much weight the standardized test is given in the admissions process.

@Mamelot I agree with your last post. The more a school is holistic in
its admission process, the more likely they are likely to ignore or downplay the concordance tables.

The colleges I contacted have invested lots of time studying scores they’ve received and the charts. I have no doubt they saw the same problems we did.