<p>Xiggi, help me with this one. What happens to the student who has high GPA, high class rank (top 5%), good ECs with strong commitment to one in particular (both in and out of school), and excellent recommendations....but a 1200 on the CR/Math SAT? PSAT composite was 180.</p>
<p>I'm not Xiggi, Thumper, but IMO, the answer is that such a student may be accepted to some top colleges, particularly in state universities, if you're lucky enough to be in a state with excellent public universities. The student, however, is extremely unlikely to be accepted at top 25 universities or LACs unless the student applies to SAT-optional ones.</p>
<p>"Xiggi, the SAT is flawed. It measures income of the parents better than anything else. "</p>
<p>However, is there a correlation between income and intelligence? Presumably in at least some cases, there is. Physicians, dentists, physicists and engineers have relatively high incomes, and also need a lot of intelligence to obtain such careers. Even people who make lots of money through entrepeneurship, for example, have to be very bright in order to do so well. </p>
<p>Many (not all) people who are working low income jobs do so because they lack the intelligence to enter more high paying careers. The exceptions include immigrants who may be very bright, but may not know English well enough to get higher paying jobs, including to past licensing tests in fields like medicine that they worked in before immigrating to the US.</p>
<p>"Massdad, feel free to categorize my assertion that rampant grade inflation and ... manipulation exist as wild speculation. While I can point to the national statistics of the inflation of GPA or point to specific examples, I do not think that is necessary. I am sure that you have seen the statistics. Feel free to further believe that schools that give a 25% grade boosts -or more- for AP classes are not engaging in grade manipulation. Feel free to believe that schools that invent all kind of gimmicks such as waiving finals for students with perfect attendance are not manipulating with a vengeance. Feel free to believe that all grades in the country are pretty similar, and I will continue to see schools that offer 25 AP, have 3.5 GPA averages, and cannot crack the 1000 on the SAT."</p>
<p>Xiggi, Nice rant, but your rant has nothing to do with what I posted. The fact that grade inflation has occurred has nothing to do with the value of HS grades as a predictor, admissions criterion etc. and you should know better than to use such an argument. Frankly, I'm disappointed. You may not be happy that reality intrudes on your own biases and frustrations, but that does happen. </p>
<p>I won't waste time on polemics, nor on your subtle jab at biased research. There's too much that's been done and published in this area by a variety of sources to waste time debating with folks that don't want to do their homework, and argue from supposition, anecdotal evidence or worse. When you've spent some time studying social science research methods and results, then we can talk.</p>
<p>I don't think the SAT was devised to discriminate among upper class Northeastern prep school applicants: as conceived by Henry Chauncey and James B Conant the purpose was just the opposite: to identify brilliant applicants from outside the Eastern WASP establishment who would otherwise have no real way to stand out to Harvard admissions. One can criticize this idea, but that's what they had in mind. Cf. "The Great Sorting" by Nicholas Leamann.</p>
<p>Idler,</p>
<p>Good point, but if you look back you would also note that the SAT was, for a long time, a test that was only taken by kids that had been identified as "college material". Since a much smaller number of kids were college bound then, since most colleges did not even require the SAT or any other test for admissions, and since the test was pioneered by elite colleges, I think there was a clear tilt in the test population.</p>
<p>Idler, I think you're right about the origins of SAT. Golly, if we could just find those diamonds in the rough, not the ones that have been selected and cut and polished to perfection in the best boarding schools, then we'd have a richer and more egalitarian America.</p>
<p>But over the years the tests took on a wholly different role, a property right of kids and parents who were willing to invest time and money in preparing for the tests. And while people seldom went around bragging about their IQ scores, they could use the IQ-score surrogate SAT to brag about how smart they were. And they could say this score entitled them to special consideration on admissions and financial aid to college. </p>
<p>What the UC did several years ago is to explode the myths about the relevance of the SAT to college performance, as well as the myth that somehow the SAT was a great economic leveler. (The ACT and SAT II's came off a bit better as a predictor of first year college grades, but not by a whole lot -- a couple of percentage points.)</p>
<p>And sometimes the SAT is used to stereotype ethnic and racial groups. While unlike the early IQ tests, the SAT's haven't been championed by the eugenics movement or those who were concerned to protect the intellectual quality of true Americans by limiting immigration, they have fed beliefs in "heredity" as determining of intelligence and have become a means of social validation, measuring self-worth. (I'm a victim of this as much as most -- I remember every one of my SAT and achievement test scores, more than 40 years ago! I know my kids' scores in detail years after they've graduated from colleges.)</p>
<p>While there might be a reason to maintain some sort of tests (SAT, LSAT, GMAt, etc.), if for no other reason than to adjust GPA's for inflation (as those Boalt Hall adjustments used to do) I think it may be time to cast off the test scores as evidence of individual merit.</p>
<p>Mackinaw, I agree that the thing has changed a lot. I've personally never felt that "predictor of freshman grades" was anything but a polite fiction. What the SAT reveals is--how well you do on the SAT, which is such an institution, having been taken, what, 100 million times, tht it is a thing in and of itself.</p>
<p>I also think that, with the increase in applications at many places, the SAT may actually be increasing in importance as an admissions factor, despite official protestations to the contrary, and despite certain niche players who don't require it. That's certainly the belief of Jas. Fallows.</p>
<p>Massdad,</p>
<p>I can't recall where I read, I think Newsweek, it but I seem to recall that in the 1970s 23% of the students graduating from HS graduated with a 4.0 or greater. Now that figure is 47% or more. My figures may not be exactly correct but they are close.</p>
<p>Imagine being an admissions officer trying to differentiate between all these 4.0 GPA students that come from HS that do not rank? The SAT & ACT, though imperfect tests, is what the admissions officers use to normalize the GPA information. I imagine that the PSAT is being used to do the same thing for the National Merit Scholarships.</p>
<p>Not that grade inflation is just an issue at the HS level, just look at what Larry Summers has been trying to do at Harvard.</p>
<p>Eagle, use of the SAT to "differentiate" those "perfect" students would not make the SAT any more valid a predictor for comparing how well those students would do in college. It would just be a decision-making device, which can also be satisfied by using a ouija board or a lottery at that point.</p>
<p>Eagle, </p>
<p>Those are weighted averages, I suspect. Adcoms are good at looking below the surface, at course difficulty, recs and other calibrators like SATII. Grade inflation does lead to GPA compression, no question. But, it does not change the fact that a 3.98 is higher than a 3.96. Whether the difference is relevant is a different matter, but that problem still exists when averages are spread out more. </p>
<p>The truth is that most kids, even with grade inflation, do not get 4.0 averages. The GPA are still spread out, just not as much. And what if a bunch really do cluster at the top? either that school administration is pretty dull (or politically tied) or they have other ways at hinting where things stand. Take the HS where my D went. They did not rank. But they did tell colleges what percentile the kid was in. Some difference. </p>
<p>Don't misunderstand. There are clear losers in this grade inflated system. The biggest losers are those kids that don't have the luxury of attending a well known HS who feeds lots of kids to top unis. These are the kids that colleges can't evaluate, so reject. These are the kids that never get the chance to show what they can do.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Xiggi, help me with this one. What happens to the student who has high GPA, high class rank (top 5%), good ECs with strong commitment to one in particular (both in and out of school), and excellent recommendations....but a 1200 on the CR/Math SAT?<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>For the UC system, I can answer this one from personal experience. A kid at our high school was in top 1% (in the top 3), good ECs, strong commitment in one sport (no outside school involvement however and not MVP material), didn't need recommendations for UCs, and 1200 SAT 1s. Did not get into Berkeley and UCLA. He was shocked, but I wasn't. </p>
<p>For all of the complaints about the College Board Tests from the UCs, you'll get further along in admissions to a top UC if you have a 1400+. </p>
<p>As for minorities, SATs and top UC admission--UCs can't use race as a factor, but they do weight overcoming economic challenges and being in certain "opportunity programs" (like AVID), sometimes heavily. The URM kids we send to Berkeley and UCLA often have lower SAT 1 scores than their non-URM comrades. But they are almost always in the top 10% of the class and take the honors workload. I don't worry about them at any school. The adjustments the UCs make for not being able to pay for SAT prep classes, etc. seem to accomplish their purpose.</p>
<p>The person who gets shafted is the one who does very well in school, but just doesn't test well.</p>
<p>I think that standardized tests are more fair than GPAs, especially at schools like mine that do not weight grades. I am not even in the top 10% with my 3.92 UW. The fact that I have taken 7 APs before senior year and some 4.0s have not even taken 3 is not taken into account. Will the 4.0 with the 1800 SAT and easier classes do better in college than my 3.92 with a 2290? Maybe, but it seems unlikely. Tests like the PSAT, SAT and ACT are more fair to kids who have a couple of B's because they've chosen to challenge themselves. There are plenty of scholarships available to valedictorians, anyway.</p>
<p>"Xiggi, Nice rant, but your rant has nothing to do with what I posted. The fact that grade inflation has occurred has nothing to do with the value of HS grades as a predictor, admissions criterion etc. and you should know better than to use such an argument."</p>
<p>What? </p>
<p>First off, your conclusion in the first line only shows that you did not try to understand my argument or are dismissing it without reading much of it. It should be pretty clear to anyone that grade inflation DOES have an impact on admissions. What happens when one competitive school in Seattle declares 30+ valedictorians. What happens when a huge percentage of US High schoolers graduate with 4.0?<br>
[quote]
This year's 406-member graduating class at Garfield High School features 44 valedictorians. Forty-four students with perfect 4.0 grade-point averages who, over seven semesters of mostly honors and Advanced Placement classes, have never earned less than an A.</p>
<p>Even for a school with a reputation as an academic powerhouse, it's a record number: Last year Garfield had 30 valedictorians; the year before, 27. </p>
<p>"It's definitely a sign of egregious grade inflation," said Nathan Pflueger, one of Garfield's 4.0 seniors. </p>
<p>Among Garfield's freshman class, 129 currently have perfect 4.0s.</p>
<p>Multiple valedictorians increasingly common </p>
<p>School Valedictorians Class Size
Garfield 44 406
Ballard 6 375
Franklin 6 349
Roosevelt 5 400
Mercer Island 2 340
Inglemoor (Kenmore) 26 563
Edmonds-Woodway 1 340
Henry M. Jackson (Mill Creek) 8 310 </p>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Further, how does an adcom appraise two different student when one is an Exeter grad with a 3.4 GPA and another is 4.75/4.00 out of an unknown school in Wyoming? The way I see the more people get lumped into a small band, the harder it is to dissociate the candidates from the others on the sole GPA basis, without even mentioning the vastly different standards among the US high schools. </p>
<p>However, let me address this little gem, "Frankly, I'm disappointed. You may not be happy that reality intrudes on your own biases and frustrations, but that does happen."</p>
<p>Wow, what do they say about the pot and kettle?</p>
<p>I think that I usually do a pretty good to segregate the frustrations -whatever they may be- of my personal life from my posts. Actually, I rarely share anything personal on the boards. So, defining my biases or frustrations would be a hard task for you. However, I would like to know what you perceive as being "my frustrations?" and in which ways do you believe the "system" might have frustrated ME. When it comes to the admissions cycle, my own story has been a very happy and pressureless one. I have not encountered problems in my personal college admission cycle, and most definitely not with grade inflation or the SAT. In the end, I was ecstatic with my choices and the month of April was pure bliss! </p>
<p>Am I biased for refusing to agree with the notion that the admission is entirely arbitrary and that adcoms are a bunch of duffuses who could use a dartboard to make better decisions? Am I biased to refuse to attack one of the few measurable elements of the system? Am I biased for not jumping on the bandwagon of the eternal malcontents? </p>
<p>Lastly, I am also very disappointed that you felt necessary to post such a condescending remark.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What happens when one competitive school in Seattle declares 30+ valedictorians. What happens when a huge percentage of US High schoolers graduate with 4.0?
[/quote]
What should happen is that the colleges tell the school that they won't accept applications unless the school does something about such perverse results. Send a clear message to the schools and the parents, give them a couple of years to straighten things out. Then the heck with it.</p>
<p>newmassdad:</p>
<p>I tend to agree with Xiggi on the SAT issue, particularly after reading your poignant line about 'losers' in the system. At least with an SAT option, kids at non-descript high schools can markedly enhance their app with a 1500; it may not get them into the top tier, but at least they won't go to the auto reject pile upon first read. I realize that regional adcom reps are 'supposed' to know each and every school in their territory, but that just ain't humanely possible, IMO. Thus, they tend to focus on the top performing publics and the privates in their district that have sent kids who have been successful in the past, i.e., HS reputation.</p>
<p>As usual, a terrific and articulate response, xiggi (#115). Thanks. He needed that.</p>
<p>Even if the students are otherwise equal, I still want the ones who test well. Given two kids with the full package and different test scores, why WOULDN'T you want one who also has the neccessary skills to test well? </p>
<p>For grad/medical/law school, standardized tests matter once again, and I think any undergraduate school would rather have students who have already proven themselves adept at taking tests when it comes time to place them in grad schools.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Even if the students are otherwise equal, I still want the ones who test well. Given two kids with the full package and different test scores, why WOULDN'T you want one who also has the neccessary skills to test well?
[/quote]
Because the one who "tests well" may well just be the one with parents who could afford expensive test prep or have given specific encouragement to focus on tests. They are not necessarily the smartest or the most qualified for admission. (Personally, in my profession I want the ones who think creatively, have broad analytic skills, work hard, work well with others, write well, and turn out good "product." I don't give a fig about their test scores.)</p>