<p>Still out there. Blame grade inflation too.</p>
<p>I wonder why they wouldn’t require a more advanced test such as GRE or GMAT if they feel like they need a standardized test?</p>
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<p>In my experience, employers will take those scores, too. But many applicants don’t have them available because they haven’t taken the tests. Applicants do have SAT or ACT scores, though.</p>
<p>not just grade inflation- college kids who consistently take easy classes to “protect” their GPA need to realize that employers aren’t just looking for good grades. They need to see other datapoints which suggest analytical ability, facility with numbers, etc. A 4.0 in underwater basket weaving doesn’t cut it for many employers.</p>
<p>This was discussed in another thread. According to the other poster, SAT scores are used as a proxy for IQ, which employers can’t ask about because it would be hard to argue that it is directly connected to job performance for most jobs.</p>
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<p>If they want to see analytical ability, facility with numbers, etc. they could ask for students to list relevant courses and grades in college.</p>
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<p><a href=“https://recreation.ucsd.edu/registration/index.php?code=54369&user_area=3&group=”>https://recreation.ucsd.edu/registration/index.php?code=54369&user_area=3&group=</a>
<a href=“The New (Olde) Reed Almanac | Reed Magazine”>http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/december2011/articles/features/almanac/almanac6.html</a>
<a href=“.::UsScuba|dot|com::. Specialty Class”>.::UsScuba|dot|com::. Specialty Class;
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<p>But are SAT scores any more relevant or connected to job performance of people with records of college courses and grades?</p>
<p>I have worked for companies which have faced court challenges over their use of various metrics in making employment decisions. They had data which showed outcomes- not surprising, someone with a 750 math SAT performed better in a job which required interpreting data than someone with a 550 SAT. Duh.</p>
<p>The practice of asking for SAT scores persists because it is A-legal, B- predictive and C- cheap and easy. When used with other metrics- GPA or GMAT scores, and qualitative data- a review of the candidate’s college transcript, it is a very convenient way to screen out the bottom fishers. Nobody is making a hiring decision based entirely on an SAT score. Nobody. But to claim that the test isn’t a useful datapoint is crazy.</p>
<p>Yes, there are clearly genius type kids who don’t test well. But if I’m hiring an entry level marketing analyst and have a choice between a kid whose HS standardized test scores show median level verbal and quant skills, vs. a kid whose HS standardized test scores show 99 percentile skills- which one would tip the scale? </p>
<p>How about the applicant with A grades in hard college courses, compared to the applicant with C grades in “gut” college courses? Wouldn’t that be more relevant than SAT scores?</p>
<p>UCB- yes, of course that’s relevant. As I said- multiple data points.</p>
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Well, I would assume that students would generally only take those if they wanted to go to graduate school or business school, and the better question would then be where the student was admitted for graduate or business school.</p>
<p>The second issue, specific to the GRE, is that the scores don’t necessarily mean as much. Something like 6% of people get a perfect 800 on the math portion of the GRE, compared to less than 1% of students who get that same score on the SAT. </p>
<p>The GMAT is expensive to take ($150 or so, IIRC), so it’s not one that students are going to do just for kicks. </p>
<p>The SAT USED to be a sort of proxy for IQ and so perhaps that is what employers think they are getting. However, since 1995, not even Mensa uses it for a proxy.</p>
<p>I think it’s ridiculous to ask an adult with a college education for SAT scores. To have a Saturday afternoon in your junior year follow your through life… not quite the American dream is it. If a company doesn’t feel they can trust a college degree (because we all know so many who have degrees in underwater basket weaving) then they can create their own test for applicants based on the material they need their employees ready to handle. Plenty of companies do it. Heck, our local school district lunch ladies have to pass a written exam including essay portion.</p>
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I assume you aren’t hiring purely based on SAT scores, so the more relevant question is whether SAT added to the prediction of success beyond the other applied hiring considerations. For example, what if you you have two job candidates who both answered technical questions about interpreting data equally well in the interviews, had a similar amount of coursework relevant to interpreting data and had similar success in those courses, and had a similar amount of work experience relevant to interpreting data and had similar success in those positions. Is the higher SAT applicant still likely to do a much better job at interpreting data? Or does the job success better correlate with having better experience/internships, success during interviews, taking more relevant courses / grades in those courses,… ; and the higher SAT scoring applicant tends to be better in these other hiring considerations. </p>
<p>Both of my kids have often had to supply SAT scores to prospective employers, which I found disturbing. Companies seem to view the math score as an indication of raw quantitative ability. S’s first employer would make spreadsheets comparing internship candidates, reserving one column for their SAT score. It stunned me to learn that a college degree from a respected institution and a relevant major or coursework was not sufficient evidence of general intellectual ability to satisfy them. For job-specific skills, employers can give their own assessments, so I’m not sure why a college admissions test is at all relevant.</p>
<p>The article mentions 95th percentile as a sort of cutoff point for one company. According to college board, that’s about a 2030. However, it seems like the math score seems to be more important for many companies. I wonder how kids who are lopsided would fare? For example 800 reading, 800 writing but 650 math. As or Bs in rigorous college math classes at a good university. </p>
<p>^ ^</p>
<p>I also wonder about late bloomers who did abysmally on the SAT…especially the math section and yet, managed to improve markedly on percentiles on the GMAT, GRE, or LSAT. I myself found notable improvements on the percentiles when I took the GRE. </p>
<p>What about the people who never took the SAT or ACT at all (e.g. started at community college, then transferred to a university to complete a bachelor’s degree)?</p>
<p>And do they account for the 1995 SAT recentering? If not, that can effectively be age discrimination against those who were old enough to have all of their SAT scores be from before the recentering.</p>
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<p>Most employers I’ve noticed who asked about standardized scores are from industries who focus hiring mainly from the top elite colleges/universities…like top-tier organizational consulting firms. </p>
<p>What’s more interesting is the ones I’ve seen did have spaces for the SAT/ACT, but exhibited strong preference for grad school related exams like the GRE, GMAT, or the LSAT. </p>
<p>I can’t imagine, @ucbalumnus, that they are asking for SAT scores for people who took the test before 1995. If they were, they (the employer) would seem to lack confidence in its ability to judge almost 20 years of employment history.</p>
<p>The GREs seem to be scored on a scale of 170 and not 800.</p>
<p>I think the main point is that the SATs as currently constructed do capture a certain kind of intelligence. It would be a good proxy for the kind of work an analyst does at a high-end management consulting firm. Collect information and data, synthesize, and report on it – often in PowerPoint rather than memo format. @Data10, your question is a good one. With all other information equal (the company’s technical questions, internships, past jobs, etc.), I’d guess it still gives you information that you haven’t captured about how good they are at wrestling with new challenges of the same sort. But, that’s clearly a guess.</p>
<p>SAT scores aren’t, I seem to recall, a good predictor of success in corporate leadership positions, though I suspect that you have to qualify it by range. I’d be willing to guess that folks who got 700 are typically better in leadership positions than folks who scored 300. But, it is plausible hypothesis that folks in the 600-700 range might actually be better at that kind of job than folks who scored 800. Or perhaps a better way to say it is that the success in certain kinds of positions is probably neither increasing nor linear in SAT scores.</p>
<p>There must be some corporate hiring and/or testing folks who can shed some light on how and why the SATs remain useful.</p>
<p>I don’t think many use it for jobs above the entry professional level jobs. They dont often hire anyone with 20 yrs experience for those jobs. Mostly for recruiting out of college or grad school.</p>
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<p>In that case, it is probably just another elitism screen.</p>