SAT: Part hoax and part fraud?

<p>Pretty scathing article.</p>

<p><a href="http://time.com/15199/college-president-sat-is-part-hoax-and-part-fraud/?hpt=hp_t3"&gt;http://time.com/15199/college-president-sat-is-part-hoax-and-part-fraud/?hpt=hp_t3&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Botstein is an long-time iconoclast–I doubt his view is shared among the vast majority of college administrators. And while standardized testing certainly has flaws, I think a lot of his points are poor ones. The SAT’s are an “ordeal”? Please. Prepping for a test and taking it is what students do. No one has ever been scarred by the SAT. The richer one is, the better one does on the SAT’s? Sure, and the better one’s GPA and extracurricular opportunities. You can’t blame the SAT for accurately reflecting the inequities inherent in our society.The criticism that students never know what they got wrong and therefore the tests are not an educational exercise? They were never meant to be and don’t need to be. And the article is written as if test scores are the sole criterion for college admission. Are great students being systematically shut out of great colleges because the SAT’s don’t reflect their strengths? Are weak students being systematically accepted to colleges beyond their capabilities because their SAT scores misrepresent their abilities? I think we need some stats on that, because I don’t hear admissions officers complaining that the students they accept aren’t living up to expectations.</p>

<p>Colleges admissions offices are free to weight standardized tests as they see fit or, as some have, make them optional, but apparently most do think they are a valuable tool for evaluating applicants–not the sole tool, just a tool. Are they all delusional? Or maybe being paid off by the College Board? If Botstein feels this strongly, he should be making every effort to convince his peers that he is right. I don’t see the point of publishing a rant in Time.</p>

<p>The blunt fact is that the SAT has never been a good predictor of academic achievement in college. High school grades adjusted to account for the curriculum and academic programs in the high school from which a student graduates are.</p>

<p>This is the strongest argument for standardized admissions tests, in my opinion. Without an independent indicator, even strong, smart students will be denied a chance at leading universities–if their high schools are deemed to be “mediocre,” and their curriculum “undemanding.” I have greater faith in a student who does well on the SAT (or other admissions test), despite a “mediocre/poor” high school, than I do in admissions officers’ ability to distinguish between thousands of high schools. Some students manage to supplement their education outside of class; without a means to prove their academic abilities, they will be shut out–as they were before the advent of the SAT.</p>

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<p>Well, no, actually. SAT scores correlate more strongly with family income than with HS GPA, and SAT scores correlate more strongly with family income than with college GPA. In other words, SAT scores are a better predictor of family income than of success in college. Colleges that have gone test-optional have found that students who didn’t submit SAT scores (presumably because they didn’t do very well on the SAT) do just as well in college as students who do submit SAT scores and are admitted partly on that basis. Of course, the students admitted without SAT scores have otherwise stellar academic records, so you’d expect them to do well in college. But then, that’s just my point.</p>

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<p>Yes, probably. Particularly high-achieving low-income and minority students who are shut out of many highly selective colleges by unimpressive SAT scores. Schools that have gone test-optional, e.g., Wake Forest, find that they admit a much more racially and socioeconomically diverse class as a result of going test-optional, and the students they’re admitting without SAT scores do just as well in college as those who submit SAT scores and are admitted partly on that basis. </p>

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<p>The rapid growth of test-optional and test-flexible schools suggests a pretty strong trend away from reliance on standardized testing, or at least reliance on a single test. Those who continue to rely on the SAT aren’t “delusional,” but many exhibit a healthy skepticism concerning the value of the test. Many admit standardized test scores are just a convenient sorting mechanism. If they get 30,000 applications and 20,000 of those show a strong HS GPA and a rigorous HS curriculum, and of those 20,000 maybe 10,000 exhibit strong ECs and at least moderately interesting essays, but the school can offer admission to only 4,000—well, something’s got to be the deciding factor. SAT scores provide another convenient filter. The admissions officers may not believe that using the SAT is actually getting them stronger students, but they need something that will help them make the cut, and using SAT scores at least has the singular virtue of getting them stronger US News rankings. Cynical? You bet. But the fact that they use it doesn’t necessarily mean they believe in it.</p>

<p>And even the people who run the SAT are apparently having serious doubts about the value of their approach to date:</p>

<p><a href=“The Story Behind the SAT Overhaul - The New York Times”>The Story Behind the SAT Overhaul - The New York Times;

<p>The move to making the SAT optional has other possible motivations. Here is what Colin Driver, President of Reed College, wrote in 2006: </p>

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<p>Such colleges may attempt to collect SAT data from those who did not submit, but these attempts tend to be perfunctory. An interesting analysis of two colleges that gave researchers access to their admissions data is at <a href=“https://www.msu.edu/~dickertc/voluntarydisclosure.pdf”>https://www.msu.edu/~dickertc/voluntarydisclosure.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Analysis of SAT and grade data is fraught with selection bias and other statistical issues. If one student submits the SAT and graduates with a 3.5 in Physics while another does not submit and graduates with a 3.5 in Anthropology, should we conclude that they performed equally? It has been documented repeatedly that there is more grade inflation in some fields than others, so GPA comparisons need to take the different standards into account. A study at Michigan shows the trends: <a href=“http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.23.3.77”>http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.23.3.77&lt;/a&gt; (There has been more grade inflation at private institutions, so I would expect more dispersion across departments at privates.) Unless those who do not submit SAT scores are selecting majors in the same proportions as those who do, GPA comparisons are of dubious value. </p>

<p>It seems natural, even obvious, to measure college success by the GPA but there are additional caveats. For instance, the student who optimized course selection to get the highest GPA in high school may do the same in college. In other words, part of what we portray as success at college is simply a continuation of strategic behavior learned in high school. </p>

<p>Finally, there is some irony in the move to make the SAT optional (which I have no particular problem with) when some employers are starting to ask job applicants for their SAT scores. With so much grade inflation (and consequent grade compression) they feel that they cannot rely on grades the way they used to. </p>

<p>Historically, the use of standardized test scores in college admissions was a democratizing trend. It provided a relatively objective basis for smart, low income immigrant kids to show they could out-perform their more privileged peers on a relatively level playing field. Resistance to using these tests is as old as the tests themselves. The remedy to flaws in the tests is not to abandon them but to create better tests. </p>

<p>Look at the list of test optional colleges (<a href=“SAT: Part hoax and part fraud? - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>SAT: Part hoax and part fraud? - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums). You’ll see many Christian colleges and directional state universities with relatively low admission standards. You’ll see a few selective LACs and small private universities (Brandeis, Rochester, WF). You won’t see any Ivies; you’ll see few state flagships. Most of the students admitted to these schools without test scores would have been admitted anyway (either because the admission standards are so low, or because the number of applicants is small enough to allow careful scrutiny of other factors.)</p>

<p>At many rather unexceptional universities, the average entering GPA now approaches - or even exceeds - 4.0. Welcome to Lake Wobegon. What other mechanism, besides standardized testing, is available for a large university to cull through tens of thousands of applications for a few thousand places, when half the applicants have perfect or nearly perfect grades from high schools with wildly different standards?</p>

<p>It would be interesting to see a study comparing SAT scores predicting family income to the inverse of family income predicting SAT score.</p>

<p>As for the editorial posted - and thanks for that article - I disagree with the author on all facets. Plus, the attention-needy headline the author chose suggests he is self-marketing for a pay increase.</p>

<p>I couldn’t let this one pass:

I’m going to get my son to practice for the SAT more so I can get a raise! :)) </p>

<p>I will say what I always say: grades are inherently biased, often flagrantly so. Most HS awards and some EC opportunities are handed out based on who has most successfully ingratiated themselves with the guidance department or whomever. (The same is true of many “leadership” positions such as team captaincies, many of which are selected by the coach, not elected by their peers.) Standardized tests are the ONLY place where a kid can go in and earn what they earn ANONYMOUSLY, without having to please an adult or an administration. The rebel, the loner, the introverted intellectual: all are equal on this stage, and this stage alone. </p>

<p>It is only part of the picture. Frankly, I regard all of the moaning about the SAT as mostly sour grapes. If the test isn’t perfect–and what is–then work towards improving it.</p>

<p>Nice one, consolation.</p>

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<p>The reason to have standardized tests at all is because of the inconsistency in course and curriculum content and grading standards in high schools. Note that in some other countries, high school courses and grades are trusted better, so no external standardized tests are needed for domestic applicants. But at the other end of the scale, there are some other countries where high school records are less trusted than in the US, so admission to universities is solely by an external standardized test.</p>

<p>However, this does mean that the taking of the standardized tests is less of an individual benefit in the evaluation of a particular applicant to a particular college, but more of a collective benefit in deterring high schools from watering down and grade inflating more than they already do. Test optional schools may be “free riding” in some sense here.</p>

<p>[Harvard’s</a> admissions dean](<a href=“Guidance Office: Answers From Harvard's Dean, Part 2 - The New York Times”>Guidance Office: Answers From Harvard's Dean, Part 2 - The New York Times) believes that the achievement-based tests (AP, IB, SAT subject, and the writing sections of the SAT reasoning and ACT) are better predictors of college performance than the SAT reasoning and ACT (excluding the writing sections). Presumably, that is why Harvard requires the SAT subject tests as well as the SAT reasoning or ACT. UC believes the same thing, but also found that lots of potentially good students (particularly lower SES ones) did not take the SAT subject tests that it formerly required. That may have been the motivation for them to lobby for moving the SAT subject test in writing into the SAT reasoning. Of course, the ability to game the SAT reasoning writing section has been discovered and publicized, although perhaps the number of applicants actually gaming that test may be small enough that its use has not been completely destroyed.</p>

<p>My dislike of the SAT is long-standing because I feel that it never really came as advertised. It came with a bias itself. My example: I’ll never forget coming across the word “necromancer” in the verbal part of the test nearly 40 years ago. No anxiety for me because I was well familiar with the word’s meaning, having read scores of fantasy and science-fiction novels well before my junior year in high school. I had never confronted that word in any classroom context. Many of the sharpest kids at my high school had never heard the word before. So, even as a 16 year-old I figured out that there was some unfairness in the SAT and it didn’t accurately perform as advertised. A bright working class or minority kid whom never read Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard or even Stan Lee would nevertheless be punished on the SAT for not correctly defining that obscure word “necromancer.” Patently unfair.</p>

<p>Bright working class or minority kids also read.</p>

<p>@LakeWashington, Those questions are meant to identify kids who have been reading widely for years. Sounds to me like it worked as intended.</p>

<p>Like actingmt said, why wouldn’t a bright working class or minority kid read science fiction or fantasy lit? Or even religious/historical lit? Or “The Odyssey”? Lord of the Rings was pretty popular in that era with the younger crowd, also, as much as that genre could be – as was Dungeons and Dragons.</p>

<p>I remember an op ed piece in the Times bemoaning the fact that the test favored a student who had read 19th century novels, to which I would respond, as I would respond to Lake Washington’s example, “So?” I agree with mathyone.</p>

<p>I enjoyed this article as well as the comments that followed.</p>

<p><a href=“The Case for SAT Words - The Atlantic”>The Case for SAT Words - The Atlantic;

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<p>The blunt fact is that the author is flat out wrong. Yes, from a statistical basis, GPA is a better predictor than SAT alone, but that is only marginally correct. It is disingenuous to say that the SAT has never been a good predictor; it just ain’t as good at GPA alone.</p>

<p>But combined with GPA, it adds value to holistic admissions. (The University of California has independently studied thousands of its students and drawn this conclusion.)</p>

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<p>The problem with such an outcomes-based analysis is that it doesn’t say what happened in the 4+ years in major. For example, did a low SAT-M applicant in a Test-optional school wash out as a math/physics major and then end up as a “Studies” major? Sure the student graduated (aka “did just as well”), but in effect was mis-matched with his/her intended major which required a strong mathematical background ability. Perhaps a blunt instrument, but the SAT-M represents critical thinking math skills pretty well, IMO.</p>

<p>And don’t forget, but the good Pres of Bard is setting a up a straw man argument. CB does not claim and to my knowledge never has claimed, that the SAT is a “good predictor of academic achievement in college.” (CB only claims that the SAT is a statistically valid predictor of Frosh grades.) </p>

<p>GPAs are becoming of little value in distinguishing students. Our high school is now graduating about 150 students per year with weighted GPAs (that’s what they report) of 4.0 or more–that’s about half of all the students who apply to <em>any</em> 4-year college. In way too many of these cases, the difference in GPA is due largely to how many arts classes the student took. What is a college to make of the grades of these 150 applicants? There are some real differences between these students but it can be very hard to discern with severe grade inflation and a poorly-designed weighting system. If it’s that hard to compare students from the same school, what about other schools? Some form of standardized testing is needed.</p>

<p>Why people don’t complain that GPA is correlated to family income, and the high school quality is correlated to family income?</p>