So how come SAT's aren't as important as they used to be?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>This is just something I've been curious to know. I have no intent to criticize or argue against it or anything, but I want to know all these top schools' argument for why SAT's seem almost of minute importance once one attains 1900+, and practically worthless beyond a 2200. Didn't everyone use to stress out so much about these things in the years past? What happened to that whole thing?</p>

<p>I understand that the SAT is becoming less fair and more subjective, favoring the people who buy prep books by the dozen and study for months at a time and take tons of classes. As an aptitude test, it seems only fair to me that everyone only study maybe one or two books to get familiar with the layout (so no one is at a disadvantage in terms of time limits and comfortability with the format). SAT prep classes are ridiculous, I think. I do see how having a plethora of books available is good because it gives everyone a chance, but anything beyond that would seem to skew the results, I'd imagine.</p>

<p>Colleges seem to be especially wary of this during the ED rounds this year, and while I am aware Harvard doesn't have an early program, I think many students will get in with 1900's without a lot of outstanding hooks. Maybe I'm just being bitter.</p>

<p>Sorry, I know this must sound like a rant. I actually agree with top schools' idea to weight the SAT less; it's just that this seems to have resulted in a heavier favorability towards the GPA and class rank, which are subjective and circumstantial by nature, which is sort of the reason why a standardized testing system was implemented in the first place. I dunno, any thoughts on the matter?</p>

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<p>The SAT gives a snapshot of your performance over three and half hours. Your GPA and class rank are a measure of your performance over three and half years.</p>

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<p>hmmm</p>

<p>I don't know which results threads you were looking at. But having looked at all of the ED/EA threads myself (for the ivies and stanford/mit) I saw less than 5 people who got in with anything below a 2000... perhaps even 2100 - and that's out of the hundreds of people who posted their decisions/stats.</p>

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<p>while that may be so, how well a person prepares for the sat can say a lot about the person. in response to the op, colleges are seeing the sat as a benchmark reference. okay, this kid has the sat scores for our college, what else now? you can't just have sats because that says nothing about the person.</p>