<p>^ So what? Smith offers more “distinguished” academic programs than HMC…that’s what the academics believe. </p>
<p>Maybe you should start a petition process and lobby these academics to show them the errors of their ways and correct this injustice!</p>
<p>Ha, ha, bluebayou – I never said that women couldn’t do science, or men couldn’t do humanities. I was trying to explain the gender bias/gap known to exist in standardized testing.</p>
<p>Since my daughter is a neuroscience major, I can’t very well claim a Larry Summers type of belief.</p>
<p>GPA is a much better predictor than SATs of ultimate college success.</p>
<p>^^–^^</p>
<p>So what, UCB? </p>
<p>Again, I am NOT the one who repeats that the best predictors of the PA are the SAT scores! Am I really wrong to counter that claim with the exact statistics for Harvey Mudd and Smith? Or should I revert to the comparisons related to the UC system schools? </p>
<p>Why would I spend my time lobbying academics who visibly could not care less about their reputation, and have admitted to manipulate the survey? Ultimately, the admissions of manipulation by several schools, the dwindling returns of surveys, and the Clemson stories will cause the USNews to move in a different direction. Oops, Morse already has! If he cannot get the information from the esteemed deans and provosts, he will get it somewhere else. The new “experts” will be guidance counselors. </p>
<p>Caveat Emptor!</p>
<p>"^ So what? Smith offers more “distinguished” academic programs than HMC…that’s what the academics believe. "</p>
<p>That’s what it looks like to me Xiggi.</p>
<p>The SAT causation…no.</p>
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<p>Considering that it is impossible to compare GPA for 30,000 schools that all use different systems of weights and quality, there will always be a need for a standardized add-on. How do possibly compare the GPA from a high school in South Carolina to Exeter’s? How do we compare the GPA from a Washington, DC public school to one in Virginia? From a ranching community in Montana to Harvard-Westlake? When is a 4.00 really worth a 4.00? </p>
<p>No stand alone measure will ever best a combination of predictors. The SAT Subject Tests are NOT better predictors when considered alone. The same can be said for the GPA or the … SAT. You should not really believe me … simply look at the results of the waffling of the mighty UC system on the precise issue.</p>
<p>xiggi, </p>
<p>one question I’ve always wondered:
what is the basis of your user name? Is it a play on that unfunny comic character named “Ziggy”?</p>
<p>If it is, you could have at least picked something funny - like Dilbert. BTW, he was created by a Berkeley grad… ;)</p>
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Are richer schools more academically challenging? The way SAT scores correlate to family income?</p>
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<p>Aren’t you barking at the wrong tree? Am I the one who has typed “Based of the analysis I did of PA, math SATs are the single best predictor of PA. I have long thought that math SATs are the single best index of college quality.” ?</p>
<p>Again, the PA “model” fans are simply going in circles clinging to the secret hope to find one theory that sticks! The Holy Grail that could explain the unexplainable!</p>
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<p>OK, I’ll take your word for it. I’d note, however, that there’s less of a discrepancy in CR v. M scores at the 700-740 range than at the 750-800 range. According to the College Board, among the 1.5 million 2008 college-bound seniors who took the SAT at least once in high school, 45,360 scored in the 700-740 range on CR, as opposed to the 56,755 who scored in that range on Math. So that’s about 11,000 more Math scores in the 700-740 range, which means 25.1% more Math than CR scores in that range.</p>
<p>At the top 750-800 range, the gap is wider: 40,466 Math scores in that range, as opposed to 24,569 CR scores—a difference of nearly 16,000, or 64.7% more Math than CR scores in the very top range. This is a huge difference, especially as these are presumably the top students who the top colleges are going after.</p>
<p>You suggest the two parts of the test might be scaled differently, so that the Math section discriminates more at lower levels. Possible, but I don’t think the data show that. Both CR and M show a “normal” distribution of test scores clustering around the mid-range, with the largest numbers of test-takers in the 500-540 range (257,487 for CR, and 245,820 for M), as well as the 450-490 range (256,810 for CR, and 238,359 for M). Below that level the numbers decline sharply, though at the low end (sub-440) there are definitely more low CR scores than there are low M scores, about 48,000 more CR scores in the sub-440 range.</p>
<p>Yet the 25th, 75th, and 75th percentile medians for the total group are remarkably close:
75th 580 CR 590 M
50th 500 CR 510 M
25th 420 CR 430 M </p>
<p>So what do we make of it? It seems a fairly straightforward proposition that extremely high CR scores are much scarcer than extremely high M scores. It’s also notable that very low CR scores are considerably more common than extremely low M scores. At the middle ranges the numbers are comparable, resulting in comparable 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile medians.</p>
<p>The score distributions on SAT II subject tests are consistent with this. Among 2008 college-bound seniors, 119,180 took the SAT II Literature subject test; of those, only 7,387—6% of the total—scored in the 750-800 range. In contrast, 150,352 took the Math 2 subject test; of those, 35,288—23% of the total—scored in the 750-800 range. So we can assume there were at most 7,387 applicants who scored 750+ on both CR and SAT II Lit—described by some as “CR on steroids,” less a test of substantive knowledge than a test in careful reading and interpretation of difficult texts. But there might have been as many as 35,288 who scored 750+ on both SAT M and SAT II Math 2—roughly five times as many top Math scorers as top CR + Lit scorers. I stand by my earlier statement that top CR scores are much scarcer than top Math scores, and consequently highly sought after by the very best colleges and universities.</p>
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<p>Not me…;)</p>
<p>My post #2:
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<p>Also, it’s not a linear correlation to SAT scores - which I think is the problem. It’s natural log this and derivative of that multiplied by pi.</p>
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<p>Peer assessment?</p>
<p>Sorry. Couldn’t resist.</p>
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<p>Indeed, I could have picked something different in 2003. Would it not have been truly hilarious had I chosen UCB-HopefulGrad or Hippielandwannabe? </p>
<p>The truth behind my picking a handle for a web community is a LOT more trivial. And no Stardust involved!</p>
<p>^ Haha…I feel so honored to talk to an Urban Dictionary entry:
[Urban</a> Dictionary: Xiggi](<a href=“http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Xiggi]Urban”>Urban Dictionary: Xiggi)</p>
<p>Xiggi, I’m agreeing with you. I can do that too once in awhile. :)</p>
<p>UCB, aren’t we all legends in our minds? I hope you found that entry in the Urban Dictionary amusing … it took me such a long time to compose. I am such a sucker for publicity!</p>
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<p>Not me. I fully accept the subjectivity as long as my favorite schools come out on top!</p>
<p>bclintonk-
It looks like the distribution of math SATs has a higher mean than the distribution of CR SATs. This could explain the difference in CR and math performance. The College Board controls the test difficulty. I wonder why they don’t give them the same mean. What is the standard deviation of the SAT math and the SAT CR? Do you happen to know?</p>
<p>Collegehelp, you will the detailed answers to your questions regarding mean and SD at this link:</p>
<p><a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/Total_Group_Report.pdf[/url]”>Higher Education Professionals | College Board;
<p>Go to page 5 for the overall details and the distribution by gender. You will find that ETS/TCB is able to produce an almost perfect 500 mean for the female pool. The difference between female and male math scores has been quite consistent for close to 40 years. </p>
<p>Female
Total 812,764
CR Mean 500 SD 110
Math Mean 500 SD 111
Writing Mean 501 SD 109 </p>
<p>The male pool is a bit different, higher in Math, lower in Writing</p>
<p>Total 704,226
CR Mean 504 SD 114
Math Mean 533 SD 118
Writing Mean 488 SD 111 </p>
<p>The historical data for college-bound Seniors for 19722008 is on Page 3.</p>
<p>^ What happens to those scores if test takers utilize the “Xiggi SAT Prep Method”? ;)</p>