<p>Hey CC community, just wanted to ask...</p>
<p>What do YOU think about Standardized Tests?</p>
<p>Is someone with a 2400 really that better than someone with a 1800?
What do these scores mean to you?
Why do colleges use these tests as apart of their admissions process?
Is it really fair to use these scores as some students who have the finances can take a thousand dollar class to get their score up when others can't?
etc...</p>
<p>Really interested to hear some answers!</p>
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<p>A trivial answer is that the person with the 2400 is better at taking the test than the person with the 1800.</p>
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<p>They are presumably used a check against the variation in course rigor and grading standards at the high schools in the US. Note that standardized tests are not needed or used by universities in some other countries for their domestic applicants, since high school courses and grading are more standardized. However, in yet other countries, a standardized test is the only criterion used for university admission, presumably because high school records are even more variable or untrustworthy than in the US.</p>
<p>I personally like them and agree with them. They are not perfect, but is there any part of college admissions that is? </p>
<p>My school is competitive, does not weight GPA’s, and uses a very hard grading scale. At my school, you can easily get a 95 GPA taking all conceptual classes, or you can get an 89 and take all accelerated/AP classes. Accelerated and conceptual classes are shown by a number (ex. Chem 100 vs. Chem 200) making it hard for colleges to differentiate which is which. Some schools grade very easily. A 4.0 at a very challenging school can be much harder to get than a 4.0 at another school. </p>
<p>Basically, I think they aren’t perfect and aren’t always representative of someones abilities, but they give admissions a nation-wide standard. GPA and EC’s, are all subjective to a lot of different variables, whereas standardized tests are not.</p>
<p>The SAT reminds me of a cockroach: nasty, fleeting, and scarring. Also, I hate cockroaches.</p>
<p>This is a complicated question. My D just got her first SAT score this morning. She got a 2340. I spent less than $100 for prep books recommended on CC. She was the one who put in the effort. She is a junior in a public high school, albeit in a fairly affluent area. I think her high score reflects a combination of her native intelligence, her own hard work and having parents who are college graduates and who researched the best way to maximize her SAT score. She reviewed vocabulary words, math prep books and took practice tests for at least 10 weeks before the SAT. </p>
<p>Our local private prep school had 26 NMSF’s last year whereas D’s public school (which is MUCH larger) had 12. So even though it is a pretty good public school, they just don’t have the resources that the private school has to get the word out and prep all the kids who are good prospects for National Merit and highly selective schools. So I am sympathetic to the idea that the system is imperfect. On the other hand, I think that thousands of dollars in test prep most likely won’t give a stupid unmotivated rich kid a top score.</p>
<p>Is she “better” than a kid who got an 1800? She’s certainly not a better person or a more worthwhile human being. But maybe she is a better prospect to succeed at a highly selective school.</p>
<p>Given the lack of a national examination system in most other countries AFAIK, you do need some quick measure to compare students academically against each other when making selections.</p>
<p>However, I think that the current SAT 1s, while not being an actual measure of English and Math proficiency (which seems weird to me) it shares the same problems as a national exam and I don’t know what you could realistically do remove the many forms of bias…</p>
<p>National exams still have learning to the test, a focus on the testing material rather than a broader look of a subject. They tend to be age inflexible. Children tend to get either held back or take them too soon. Parents who can afford it pay for private education and/or private tutoring which gives them a massive advantage. Or the family moves to an expensive area where the state school has excellent results. Some schools have rubbish teachers and/or disruptive classmates. They don’t measure aptitude for a subject. Smart kids don’t get much chance to explore more vocational routes. </p>
<p>To sort things out to be truly meritocratic process, it would need fundamental changes in society and how we think about success and fairness.</p>
<p>I think if you think about it from the adcom’s perspective these tests make sense. If you were looking at a stack of 20,000 applications and had to give scholarships to the top 3%, how else would you choose ?</p>