<p>how is it that when a student scores low on the SAT, but has a higher GPA it is automatically assumed that there's grade inflation at the school?</p>
<p>My school's one of the most competitive in my state. I did really poorly on the SAT but I have a good GPA (~3.8)</p>
<p>one of my friends on the other hand, has a really bad gpa (~2.9) but did great on the SAT. when she applies to colleges, the colleges will automatically think there's grade deflation at the HS and give her extra points.</p>
<p>And I worked my butt off through HS for 4yrs to get my grades for nothing? due to stupid biased SATs?</p>
<p>my classmates look at me like I'm stupid when i tell them the schools i'm now applying to. Just because my SATs don't measure up to the schools i planned to apply to.
plus i won't be getting any of the local scholarships i partly relied on.</p>
<p>Schools prefer a good gpa vs. test scores. You're more likely than your firend to get into the colleges you apply to.</p>
<p>Also, why not look at schools that don't require test scores like:
Bates
Bowdoin
Lawrence U
Holy Cross
Dickinson
Gettysburg
Franklin & Marshall
Pitzer
Lewis & Clark</p>
<p>If you're applying to top colleges, there are plenty of applicants with both excellent test scores and gpa. That hurts you a lot more than just "inflation/deflation."</p>
<p>@Isleboy,
That's exactly what I'm currently doing :) looking at good schools that don't require SATs. lol ( One of my friends even said I was being lazy for trying to apply to Ursinus. oh well)</p>
<p>@Ray192,
not exactly looking at the topmost elite schools but I was looking into top schools (top 30).</p>
<p>@GoldShadow,
I forgot about rank. lol.
I'm in the top 10% of my class. hopefully they'll look at that. :/
My school's pretty competitive for a public school too but the only thing I didn't get was that sometimes when members (on here) post their stats and had dissimilar SAT and gpa, people blame it on grade inflation or deflation.</p>
<p>URM are a big disadvantage with the SAT/ACT, however that doesn't mean that their schools' grades are inflated or they're stupid. </p>
<p>IMO the ACT (only one I took, can't speak for the SAT) is a bunch of BS to be honest. That doesn't measure your true abilities or your desire to succeed in a particular college, SPECIALLY since that dang test is timed!.</p>
<p>I'm an URM, speak almost 3 languages (4 years of french, spanish fluently and english fluently), and got a mediocre ACT test ( I guess being an URM, having ADHD and not studying for it didn't help my cause much at all lol), yet my HS gpa was 3.8, graduated with Honors and now i have a 3.93 gpa in college taking real classes, calculus, etc.</p>
<p>stop blaming on being a URM..how does being a URM negatively affect your score..that's BS.... being a URM actually is ur advantage becoz college's look at your 1300 as 1530 if you are black and your 1300 as 1480 if you are hispanic according to a princeton study which is a bunch of BS again</p>
<p>"stop blaming on being a URM..how does being a URM negatively affect your score..that's BS.... being a URM actually is ur advantage becoz college's look at your 1300 as 1530 if you are black and your 1300 as 1480 if you are hispanic according to a princeton study which is a bunch of BS again"</p>
<p>I'm not blaming it on being an URM, it' a fact though that URm test lower than others. BECAUSE THE TEST IS IN ENGLISH YOU MORON !!!, many URM don't dominate the English language as an american citizen does, if the test was in each person's first language, spanish, chinese, etc etc. then it'd be a whole different ballgame. </p>
<p>You've been speaking/hearing english for 17 years, and somebody who got here 4 years ago or so do not have the same language pro efficiencies. As I said, if you give the test on each person's natural language, then it'd be totally different.</p>
<p>I never said anything about how colleges look at the score, I just mentioned the ACTUAL lower scores that URMs get on the tests, which is a fact, backed up with real data. However the adcoms wish to consider the test scores that's their problem, but URMs whose natural language is not English do test lower than those whose english is their first language... </p>
<p>How else do you account for adcoms "inflating" URM's test scores then ?, get a damn clue and your facts right, before you come here. If you feel you're such a bad ****, how do you think you would do in the ACT/SAT in Spanish after living in Spain for 4 years ?... that's right.</p>
<p>I am a URM and I got a 31 ACT which is around a 1420 or so SAT. I applied early to Dartmouth and I was deferred. I guess URM doesn't make that big of a difference...</p>
<p>URM's don't make any difference at all...Asians are minorities as well, and wouldn't they be in the same boat as spanish-speaking applicants? Wouldn't it be easier for us to take the tests in chinese or hindi? Yet, referring to bearcats posts, the study that he cited states that asians lose 50 points off their SAT score, which pretty much means that if an asian got a perfect 1600, it would be comparable to a hispanic getting a 1370 so all minorities don't get treated the same even though we should be in the same boat. </p>
<p>Sanchez^^^
traditionally, URMs help, but nobody's a shoe-in at an ivy, no matter what yer score or ethnicity...good luck getting rd!</p>
<p>Asians are not URMs, they're overrepresented at most colleges.</p>
<p>Being a URM does help, there's no doubting that. But nobody is going to get in just because they're a URM.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Is this some kind of joke? The test has CR/W sections for a reason. TO TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Wow. The density on these boards.
[/quote]
Yes, you just proved Rijeosxeper's point. Because it tests knowledge of the english language, people who aren't good at english will have trouble with it.
But besides that, a lot of URMs are born and raised in America. The reason for their lower scores is that a lot of them come from a poor socioeconomic background.
Look at the majority of the areas of poverty and low education in the states. The majority will be black and hispanic, which is why colleges give URMs from such backgrounds a boost in admissions.</p>
<p>sanchez...wut do u mean being URM doesnt help..if it were an asian with that 1420 applying early to dartmouth, it's probably a reject instead of a defer...1420 is lower than the average 1437</p>
<p>btw RijeosXeper, i moved from hong kong to the states 3 years ago....and my mother tongue is chinese....why dont i see them giving me a 230 point boost like an african american?</p>
<p>by the way the inflation is not bull crap it's from a princeton study doof</p>
<p>But aren't most african-americans native born americans? They can't blame low scores on not speaking english as a native tongue, unless they grew up speaking kenyanish or ghandanian, which I highly doubt.</p>
<p>Nope they can blame inequity of funding in public schools...there are political, social, historic, and economic reasons for performance on tests.</p>
<p>See: The Big Test, The Shape of the River, The Promised Land, The Otherside of the River, etc...</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Look at the majority of the areas of poverty and low education in the states. The majority will be black and Hispanic, which is why colleges give URMs from such backgrounds a boost in admissions.
[/QUOTE]
Except for the fact that no matter what background they are from, they get a boost in admissions. If a wealthy black/Hispanic applied, they would still get the same 'boost'.
What about the poor whites. They can come from the same background (poor, inner-city, bad education) but they get no boost, plus they might even have less of a chance because they are applying for financial aid ( even though the colleges aren't supposed to care about that).</p>
<p>One thing I saw is that fair-test I think it was (maybe another organization) comes right out and calls the SATS racist (or something), not the makers of it, but the test itself!</p>