I think its the way its been for Math II. My son took it too and skipped 8 questions - not pretty. Hopefully the ones he didn’t skip are all correct!
Do any of you know if the CB has published new norms/averages/concordance tables for younger students taking the new SAT?
Why do you think they say little about the student? GPA provides context within a school system, but only standardized tests can provide context across school systems. I think the latter is nearly as important as the former.
Ruby789, it is also a shame that so many students have their eye on the most competitive 20-50 schools. If they didn’t have their eye on a very narrow range of schools they would not have to fret so much about getting in. They value only those schools about which they have to fret.
http://www.act.org/content/act/en/about-act/perspectivesandhappenings.html
ACT calling SAT a liar :))
^ Interesting. Can anyone find the College Board’s response by Jack Buckley that is referenced in the ACT’s 2nd post?
Edit: Found it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/05/12/whats-a-college-test-score-worth-an-sat-vs-act-dispute/
@lostaccount I do feel like a big part of that is motivated by financial need. Many of those schools guarantee to meet (school-calculated) need, or nearly meet need; leave the top 50 and a very small percentage of schools offer to do that. I know it certainly had a role in my list formation - all the schools had to meet at least 95% of need on average (except for 2 public financial safeties); this restricted matches and reaches almost entirely to RUs and LACs in the top 50 of their rankings.
That Math II subject test is packed with STEM kids. My D3 is smart but isn’t necessarily looking to major in science or engineering. She took Math II because that was the appropriate level for her. I hope the colleges don’t look too closely at percentiles! It’s quite a select group of kids.
@lostaccount: You are absolutely right, but what can be done about that?
Usualhopefull, While need accounts for some portion of the applications to these few colleges (that meet need), it probably does not account for quite a large percentage. A large contingency of students from upper middle class families whose parents have plenty are as likely (maybe more likely) to focus on these few schools than those who have need–In fact more so than families that have need.
Ruby789, students can be encouraged to apply to some of the many terrific schools that are not as “popular” but often as good.
@Ruby789 and others–there are indeed colleges that don’t require SAT or ACT for admissions, including but not limited to: Wesleyan, American, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Utica, Bowdoin, Bates, Pitzer. Many more. For those who feel the standardized tests don’t accurately reflect your potential or ability, check it out. 
Re standardized tests: They are always curved. That’s why they’re called standardized. They are deliberately constructed to produce a reliable bell shaped curve. “Reliable” means that test to test, the scores are consistent (a 610 on one test means a 610 on another). One reason the colleges like them is that they are a theoretically bias-free means of sorting out students into top 10%, 1% or even top 0.1%.
The new SAT is still not fully normed. It’s a mess (one many tutors like me predicted). Not fully normed means that it is not yet a fully reliable, statistical bell shaped curve in a single test, and/or from test to test. This is because CB rushed to get it out. Creating a reliable standardized test (what ACT is referring to) takes years. SAT raced to get this out first to compete with Pearson, which has been rapidly positioning itself as the high school testing company; CB wants in, which is why it boasts it is 'aligned to the Common Core." It also raced to get this out because it has been rapidly losing ground to ACT, because of the perception (not reality) that ACT is 'easier. " (This cannot be true as the test is curved; if it’s easier, the curve just shifts.) But they wanted the perception, which is why it was quickly reported by the media that 'students report the new SAT is easier!" The media has not done due diligence with this whole debacle and in general has simply been CB"s echo chamber. But oh well. It is what it is.
If you can do ACT, do it–but some kids are bad with it particularly those who have time management issues (it is very time-tight), and kids who have trouble with spatial interpretation (science section is extremely graph heavy).
@hebegebe: Standardized tests are just one more data point used to analyze the student’s profile. But they’re not accurate predictors of college success and IMO are used as a gatekeeping mechanism. Colleges are first and foremost businesses, even state run universities. To continue turning out well educated students, institutions need to keep the doors open. This is accomplished by maintaining good retention rates, graduating students within a reasonable time frame and installing alma mater fever so donations and funding continue to roll in. To achieve this the student needs to be college ready but most importantly, successful in college. GPA - whether the student graduated from Choate or rural podunk high, so far has been the best predictor of this success.
This is just my cynical viewpoint.
@connections: I’m still not understanding the need for a curve if these tests are designed only with examining college readiness. My stats class was eons ago. I seem to have a block here.
This is often misunderstood.
If a rigorous college admitted students irrespective of SAT scores (but required everyone to take them and submit them), the SAT score would be a strong predictor of college grades.
It is a weak predictor only because colleges already filter on SAT scores. In fact, you could argue that because SAT scores still help predict college grades, that more emphasis should be put on them not less.
Because college readiness is different whether we are talking about the local community college, the nearby directional university, the state flagship, or a top 20 university. The first two categories will take anyone, the state flagship is looking for the top 15%, and the top 20s are all hunting within the top 3%.
So the new sat is inflated, then? I’m seeing a lot more people get 1550+ when they would not be able to get 2300+ on the old SAT. Does that put 2017 grads using old sat grades at a disadvantage?
Colleges will either convert all scores to old SAT scores (this is my guess for lots of them, since the scale is familiar) or convert all scores to new SAT scores (this is what the CB wants). So, if the concordance tables are essentially accurate, there shouldn’t be a disadvantage. However, to know whether the concordance tables are accurate, one would ideally want about a year’s worth of (accurate) percentile data to compare to old SAT percentiles.
If you look at https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/educators/higher-ed/scoring-changes/concordance, they now have a link to the “Large-Scale SAT Concordance Tool (Electronic Score Reports)” spreadsheet, which contains instructions for colleges to load a file containing the Electronic Score Reports they get from CB and run a conversion. It says that the output will contain “old SAT scores concorded to New SAT scores” and “new SAT scores concorded to old SAT scores.” So, they are providing support for colleges that want to convert in both directions.
@shezhushe – “I’m seeing a lot more people get 1550+ when they would not be able to get 2300+ on the old SAT.” Really? Strange, I’m not seeing that many people, at least here on CC, reporting 1550+. I’m seeing lot more people reporting below 1500.
@TiggerDad The anecdotal data I’m hearing regarding the March test results agree with your assessment. My daughter attends a large public high school in an affluent area. She isn’t hearing about any test scores above 1500. I find that strange given all the talk of inflated scores.
My son’s friends all felt they did better than they actually scored. Out of a dozen kids he is friends with, he knows only 1 that scored 1400. 2 in 1300’s including my son, and then all the rest low to mid 1200s. They have all taken the ACT before and aside from the kid with the 1400 none of the kids surpassed their ACT score with the new SAT score.
My son is going to take both tests again shortly, and hopefully improve a little bit on both.
@TiggerDad @RightCoaster @brian-scorebeyond Of course, most people don’t get 1550+ because it is 99th percentile, but the trend seems to be that on the higher end of things, 2200 range scorers are getting bumped up to 2300s and 2100s to 2200s. Critical reading used to be the “weakness” of many students and math the easier portion, especially for asian students. Now that math is worth half and vague crit is gone, scores start going up. This is the part that makes the score ‘inflated’ relative to the old.
Here’s another angle on the “inflation” discussion:
Under the old test, colleges would often ignore the writing score and just report CR and Math on their admissions websites. Now, writing has been combined with the reading section into one subject score called Evidence Based Reading and Writing (EBRW); however, as long as you have the individual (i.e. 40-scale) test scores you can easily remove the effect of writing on the verbal section. Not sure if that’s something that colleges are going to look into doing - writing no longer includes the essay and content might be harder to separate from the reading section than it was on the old test. Plus there are all those cross-scores and sub-scores so clearly benchmark categories are placed throughout both sections.
Thoughts? I guess the first question would be whether colleges can even make this happen - it would depend on the level of detail they are provided in their score report. It may be the same info. as what the student receives or it may be in more summary form.