As previously suspected, the questionable accuracy of the College Board’s 2016 Concordance Tables will infect the new, not-yet-published Common Data Sets, as all Old scores from last admissions season will be converted to New via the Concordance Tables - and then mixed with actual New Scores - to come up with the middle 50 reported on the CDS. In spite of the higher actual percentiles reported by the College Board for the Class of 2017 a month or so ago. Thanks, College Board. I am thinking the CDS ranges will be artificially high due to reporting Old scores as higher, concorded ones. It may not seem like this matters, but this may cause kids to undershoot if the kids’ scores are around or under an artificially high 25th percentile.
I suppose this will all be sorted out for the next year? Then, they will just be using actual new SAT scores and no old concorded scores. Then, people will wonder why all of the SAT averages went down…
Yes, I think they will jump up for a year, especially at colleges where a lot of the students took the old SAT (which won’t be shown on the CDS). Then they will drop the following year. And people will wonder and compare apples to oranges. But the College Board won’t change the concordance table.
This is a somewhat unscientific and definitely limited in scope attempt to get some correlation between new SAT scores and ACT scores. By looking at 9 schools actual 50% results for the class of 2021.
The schools and scores results are as follows:
UVa : SAT 1330 - 1490
ACT 31 - 34
Obviously, just a small sample size and I’m also making the assumption that schools are looking at the ACT and SAT scores as interchangeable and equal.
To the best of my knowledge, these are published actual SAT results from the class of 2021 for each school listed. I excluded any that referred to concordance or conversion.
@Cavitee, I think you also need to make sure you are showing admitted vs admitted or enrolled vs enrolled. For most schools admitted is higher than enrolled. It looks like you have some of both. I guess as long as your SAT and ACT are the same, it should work.
@cavitee - but the class of 2021 would have a combination of the old SAT and the new SAT.
A theory I have heard is that for the class of 2021 SAT takers, the stronger kids took the SAT early (old version) as they tend to be prepared earlier and then weaker kids took the SAT later and took the redesigned version. This could explain why some schools reported data that does not show the redesigned scores higher than the old version, despite the concordance table those scores should be higher.
All CDS SAT numbers include old SAT that was concorded and added to the new SAT numbers. If you got your numbers there, then these SAT numbers are still skewed. Plus, when I look at ACT versus SAT numbers for any school, I don’t think it tells the real story. I think more kids do better on the ACT so those ACT numbers are probably from kids who didn’t (or couldn’t) score as well on the SAT. I know there are concordance tables for a reason but sometimes I think admissions really should only compare SAT kids to SAT kids and ACT kids to ACT kids. It’s really not apples to apples.
Maybe it’s anecdotal but I know a lot of kids who took the ACT cold and got a 32-33 but, when they took the SAT cold, they scored well below a 32-33 condorded SAT score. As much as people want to believe that they test the same things, I really don’t think the tests are equal. You have to be a certain type of student to be able to move fast on the ACT to get a good score. You need to be a particularly strong reader to do well on the SAT. I guess that’s part of the problem. Tests scores only tell you so much, yet schools continue to put importance on them.
A few of the schools had separate Old SAT category and at UVa because they received so few Old SAT Dean J said they only used the New SAT in their 2021 profile.
As IzzoOne alluded to some are accepted and some admitted but since it was only a means of comparing SAT to ACT I felt that was irrelevant. It was an attempt to look at New SAT vs ACT because my feeling ( as many others on here would concur) that the original concordance table is extremely inaccurate.
These are individual schools 25th percentile and 75th percentile benchmarks for 2021. I know it’s not apples to apples but since we are all grasping at straws I thought it might be interesting to look at something more concrete
I’ve read some of this thread, but could someone break it down in simpler terms for someone who’s never taken a stats class? What exactly appears to be the issue and what is the relevance to students applying for admission this year? Is a high SAT score not considered as valid as it used to be?
@TTdd16 At the highest level, it seems the scores on the new test are even harder to achieve. Our S19 got a 1540 which was estimated to be a 99th percentile score. Now that real kids have taken the real test, that score is now a 99+ percentile. This could mean that the concordance tables that the schools have been using for ACT/new SAT concordance are off. While that 1540 is a 34 on the College Board’s original concordance chart, it might be more like a 35 with this new percentile information. Yet, the CB has not yet released new concordance charts based on real new SAT scores.
Just found this nugget on CB website:
“Tables for comparing the new SAT with ACT are also included. New, direct concordance tables comparing the SAT with the ACT are in development and will be released in the summer of 2018.”
So, for us and our S19, we will have a new concordance table before he applies to colleges. But this year’s seniors will not.
@homerdog, thank you so much for this clear explanation. I feel even better about my D18’s 1580! So bottom line, kids scoring high on the ACT may be getting somewhat of an edge over those scoring high on the SAT, unless individual colleges have recognized that something is off on the scoring. (Completely anecdotally, I know a fair number of kids who have scored a 34 or higher on the ACT, but only a couple who are over a 1500. I really do think they’re very different tests.)
@TTdd16 Agreed. Our GC and my friend who is a private college counselor told us S19 is done testing. A 1540 (800 math 740 EW) is past a threshold to get him in anywhere. The admissions rep will move on to look at the other things on his application. So, in my book, your D is good to go test-wise. That’s for sure!! And our son has numerous other friends who are juniors who already have a 34 and can’t seem to break 1500 on the new SAT. Still not sure what that means…
Let’s hope highly selective college admissions departments are getting the message. The fact that this statement is on College Board’s website is a HUGE problem for this years’ seniors: “Tables for comparing the new SAT with ACT are also included. New, direct concordance tables comparing the SAT with the ACT are in development and will be released in the summer of 2018.”
@Living61 would be happy if less selective colleges got the message, too. There were a few I would have asked my D to apply to for the sake of scholarships which she did not because the new adjusted numbers, based on the CB concordance, disqualified her from the full-tuition awards.