<p>If you’re trying to distinguish between the 99.99th percentile and the 99th percentile, wouldn’t it be better to rely on interviews rather than a few harder questions on the SAT? Perhaps using logic puzzles that some companies use to hire employees would be better (Microsoft is known for this). As an interviewer, you’d be able to see firsthand which applicant is more intelligent or and which one just got lucky on a few hard questions. </p>
<p>And how often do you really need to distinguish between the 99th and 99.99th percentile (in terms of SAT score)? Do you ever see that happening?</p>
<p>Employers don’t care if an applicant has a 3.6 GPA or a 3.9. Why do colleges feel there is a need to not only distinguish between the 1580’s and the 1600’s, but the 1600s from the 1600s as well?</p>
<p>bobby I think your idea is brilliant. I’m personally a big fan of standardized testing because my high school is way harder than we get credit for, and my test scores came out a lot better than my grades because of that. The SAT has become too coachable–it needs analogies and more difficult math in order to really distinguish between the naturally sharpest tools in the shed or the tools that spend a year trying to sharpen themselves.</p>
<p>I’m not denying that many, many bright kids get excellent SAT scores, but a huge part of it is about how good a test taker you are.</p>
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<p>And heaven forbid you end up in an Ivy with one of those tools who had to work to sharpen itself. The school would just not be elite enough! The distinction must be made!</p>
<p>Anyone who is familiar with the research literature on psychometrics knows that your error of estimation in mental test scores goes up as you go farther from the population mean. That’s one of the main reasons why ETS, whose staff knows psychometrics, hasn’t seen any reason to go beyond a three standard deviations on each side of the mean scoring scale for the SAT. It’s by no means clear that a “super SAT” would add much information to the admission process, because if all the test-takers did retakes, the top group of test-takers might interchange quite a bit in rank order.</p>
<p>I love how the op made a thread saying he got into Penn in 2006, then asked for chances in 2007 for Rutgers. Also seems to have the nerve to insult others choices of EC’s. Can’t seem to get a story straight…</p>
<p>Not to forget the little bit that he has an 1190 SAT with a 3.1 gpa. It’s not as if the op’s “super SAT” would be a good thing for him at all. Clearly he isn’t part of that 99th percentile that just needs to be broken down to show ivy’s who is the “best of the best”.</p>
<p>I was so glad to see your post. Reading through this thread I noticed that midway into the discussion the OP had been identified as a HS senior with a history of posts that indicate someone who is being less than honest. I was surprised that this didn’t raise any questions about the OP’s intentions, and people just kept right on posting. I still have a hard time understanding why people rush to post without reading through an entire discussion. It’s good to see there are some that do take the time.</p>
<p>It seems to me that bobbythebrain is leading one heck of a double life on these boards.</p>
<p>Well, don’t worry about him–I’m now more interested in pafather’s points. Perhaps an argument could be made that CalTech and MIT could use a harder standardized math test–but do they really have a big problem deciding which of the 800-scorers to take? It’s certainly possible that a test could be “too easy” to make distinctions at the upper end–I just don’t think that’s true with the SAT as a whole, because there aren’t that many perfect scorers in the first place. It MIGHT be true with respect to the math SATII at the very most selective schools that rely primarily on stats.</p>
<p>let’s have a super SAT where it is almost guaranteed that everyone gets zero!</p>
<p>but seriously, I actually agree with the OP. I really want to distinguish between the 2300s-2400. It could be like the SATII math. you can take the level 1 which is regular SAT or the level2 which is the hard one. Sure, scores aren’t everything, but it can still show Universities which students are more strong in those subjects.</p>
You mean the best standardized test takers and the second best test takers? If the SAT if a measure of ‘brightness,’ then I guess I’m a pretty ‘ordinary’ person.</p>
- and is also the 64K question for many.</p>