"What Would be Wrong With Chucking the SAT?"

Parents Forum
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<p>marite:
well then, my motto is <em>add</em> to it (if it's not "ditch it"). I think you make some excellent points about a national educational standard. I'm all for that.</p>

<p>What I mean by add to it is not just "SAT-optional," not just "look at non-testing" as well. That's what <em>supposedly</em> happens now. (Yeah, we colleges look at the whole package -- blah, blah, blah.) The truth is, they do not look at the whole package, too often -- and ironically ESPECIALLY at the mid-level, or at least not the super-top-tier. Or, at least they do not place a well-balanced emphasis on all those elements.</p>

<p>I do very much disagree with you that there is a wide range of scores at some of those 2nd and 3rd tier schools I was alluding to. There is too often quite a disparity between the acceptable GPA's at those schools & the acceptable scores. What I see at the upper level is much more consistency (which I respect more). At many an LAC or University that is not top tier, you can get accepted with a 3.0 and a 1400 (old table) + lame E.C.'s; where the 3.75 and the 1200 with fab e.c.'s & a busload of achievement in Honors courses & supplemental programs can<em>NOT</em> get accepted to that same school -- whether the high school graduated from is public high-rent, public low-rent, private demanding, or private low-level. I am talking about what is on websites, what is repeated from college reps, the spoken replies from admissions dep'ts, and the personal experiences of many associates of mine. I can tell you that in those colleges of which I speak, the non-admitted students (with "lower" scores) could run rings around many of those admitted students with slightly higher scores. The reason such colleges do this? They're parrotting the upper-tier, i.m.o. That's my big gripe. There's just a ton of evidence that most mid-level & even many lower-level mimic the policies & practices of the very top tier, & i.m.o. without justification. Not all of those receive applications by the thousands, believe me. Plenty of non-SAT optional schools get about the same # of apps that the SAT-optional ones do, so that "reason" (the "reason" of numbers) won't fly with me. </p>

<p>Your other points are good.</p>

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<p>We all have our personal ax to grind. It would be a rare person indeed who thought our system of selective college admission could not be improved upon. I have tried several times to get the board engaged in a conversation about the respective efficacy of GPA , courseload , AP scores, SAT/ACT scores, class rank, essays, rec's, interviews, and brag sheets . I can't seem to get that ball rolling to what I believe is the inevitable conclusion-they are all flawed measures capable of gaming, capable of inaccuracy, favorable to those with access to information and money, and unfair to somebody's kid. </p>

<p>I know mini believes that you can look to the resulting demographic and SES makeup of selective colleges and from that determine their intent or motivation in setting up and continuing this flawed system. Heck, I don't know- I think he may be right ;) -but for the parent of a 2011 student, it ain't likely to change in time for your kid. </p>

<p>You see it all the time, Little Johnny the val is a poor SAT test taker and that should be overlooked. Little Jane would have been val but she took what interested her and it was unweighted so her rank should be overlooked. Little Johnny has interview anxiety and that should be overlooked. Little Jane really likes to listen to her I-pod and crochet so her lack of EC's should be overlooked because it would be fake for her to do anything else. Little Johnny has trouble expressing himself in writing about personal things so the essays shouldn't count against him. And , of course, Little Jane was mis-labeled as a troublemaker in high school when she was only trying to be herself so therefore her rec's from witchy teacher/GC should be ignored. </p>

<p>Everybody here has seen posts complaining bitterly of the unfairness of one or more of these elements as they are applied to the poster's Little Jane or Johnny. Some of them may have been mine. :eek:</p>

<p>I agree with marite that we should work to improve our "national test" and the other modalities . I believe on here Xiggi does that in bringing a low or no cost tool (the Xiggi Method) for all students to use. It certainly appears to be successful. Marite and others have made suggestions on thousands of brag sheets and essays. Many more have tried to fill in for overworked or underprepared GC's and I think when people have listened and separated the wheat from the chaff, they have received valuable advice. </p>

<p>We gained great benefit from folks who are working on this very BB to correct some of the problems inherent in the current system. To make it more fair. To more accurately represent the students' accomplishments. Thank you , guys and gals, for all you do to help even the playing field. Your efforts do not go unnoticed.</p>

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<p>epiphany:</p>

<p>IMO, where testing really counts is in merit aid. A school like USC will offer a (nearly) automatic $15k discount to a NMF with a 3.6, but zip to a 4.0 Commended student from the same HS. In essence, 4 years of academics is trumped by a one-time, 100 minute test.</p>

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<p>Epiphany:</p>

<p>Your point about non-top tier schools going by the scores rather than GPAs may be right. I would not know. But my own point is that they would not put so much weight on the SAT if they were more confident that the GPAs are not inflated.<br>
I can accept that SAT scores are more in line with GPAs at the top schools because of the element of self-selection. But I realized that GPAs trumped SAT when I overheard two admission officers talking about an applicant who had perfect SAT scores but less perfect GPA as an underachiever and decided not to admit the applicant. To them the GPA was a better indication of the student's potential, and the perfect SAT scores became useless.
I'm sure there are parents on CC who have been gnashing their teeth about their kids being considered slackers because of this discrepancy between board scores and GPAs; and they think that the SAT should be given greater weight because it shows potential, etc... It's a lose-lose kind of discussion.</p>

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<p>And bb, that would be MY personal axe. LOL.</p>

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<p>Bluebayou:</p>

<p>I agree about the inordinate importance of NM status for scholarships and merit money.</p>

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<p>blue, I agree with you, too! (I was going to mention about the merit bar, too, especially at some of these LOW level colleges, but I didn't want to muddy my own argument.)</p>

<p>cur, I'm not sure what you're getting at when you claim that "we all have our own axe to grind." I've always read that phrase as indicating a "cause" that is based on personal prejudice/personal feelings irrespective of the larger picture. If so, I don't agree with that. I look at this from 2 vantage points, mostly. (I have much bigger fish to fry & more complex issues when it comes to my own remaining D.) My 2 viewpoints are as an educator and as a responsible member of society. We all moan & groan here, or many of us do (& rightly so!) about the out-of-control admissions numbers, process, headache, impossibilities, etc. One of the segments most difficult to place right now is precisely that 3.75 - 3.8 student. I cannot tell you the # of students I personally know & recently met who felt they had to LEAVE THE COUNTRY just to get accepted to a school with <em>peer</em> students. It is actually easier at the moment to (or, there are more plentiful spaces -- more U's & colleges) for the 3.2 student than the one just under 4.0. That is particularly true on the coasts. Just good luck if your scores are "off" by 100 points. If you don't get accepted to one of the close-to-top-tier schools (reflecting your close-to-top-tier academic record), you're going to end up at a catch-all school that accepts GPA's as low as 2.8, and <em>particularly</em> if your scores are not much HIGHER than your GPA might indicate. So what tends to happen is that such students try fiercely to get into some of the upper tiers. And I'm sorry, I don't blame them. They should in fact look for schools reflecting their aptitude. But that motivation puts tremendous pressure on the upper tiers. </p>

<p>The point of a more rational (i.m.o.) & more balanced view of the SAT I (or other standardized test) is that it would reduce the admissions frenzy if students knew there were plenty of schools for them in line with their need for challenge & intellectual compatibility. A more flexible, less rigid policy with respect to the SAT, at all schools (not just SAT-optional) would aid this, I believe.</p>

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<p>epiphany, I can change it to "we all have our own favorite whippin' boy" and my meaning will stay reasonably consistent and it won't suggest as personal an involvement on the whipper's part. Does that help? If not, just take out the intro altogether if it's clouding the rest of it for you.</p>

<p>Actually, like you I really don't have an ax to grind with any of the selection elements listed (NM scholarships are not an admissions element. LOL. ). They all worked fine for my only kid and we're done with UG (I hope :eek: ). But I do have a few students that I'm working with (some IRL, some adopted on-line) and many of those kids are facing these issues head-on. So I'm concerned with the system, but my primary emphasis is finding colleges that these kids can get in, afford, and enjoy. I can't afford to spend any more time than I'm spending. I'm glad you are working to change the admissions system. This effort can use workers at all levels.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
One of the segments most difficult to place right now is precisely that 3.75 - 3.8 student. I cannot tell you the # of students I personally know & recently met who felt they had to LEAVE THE COUNTRY just to get accepted to a school with <em>peer</em> students.

[/quote]
Epiphany, I fully agree with your point of view on the SATS-- I posted before that I think all colleges should go test-optional -- but I am wondering about this statement. Do these students simply have unrealistic aspirations or expectations about the quality of college they need to attend? I mean - there must be many excellent college for students with those GPA's, though I would agree with you that they would be shut out of the most competitive colleges. But it seems to me that there are many excellent colleges for students to choose from -- and the notion of "peer" students strikes me as odd. </p>

<p>Do these 3.8 GPA kids really think they are too smart to attend a public university or a college that happens to fall on the lower half of the US News first tier list, or on the 2nd tier page? Because, of all reasons, they don't want to have to share their classes with some kid coming out of high school with a 3.2 GPA? </p>

<p>If that's the attitude, then I honesty think these kids have a lot of learning to do, and it's not the kind of learning they are going to get in college. </p>

<p>I sympathize with your problems in placing these kids, but I think I am either misunderstanding what you are getting at, or these kids have been so bamboozled by the prestige & ranking game that they can't recognize the obvious: the best college that they can get into will be filled with plenty of other students just like them. If things have gotten so competitive that kids with 3.8 GPA's can only get into colleges ranked #65 and below on the US News list, then that is where the other 3.8 GPA kids will be going. </p>

<p>I'd highly recommend the podcast about college admissions at Amherst here:
<a href="http://johnmerrow.blogspot.com/2005/10/college-admissions-john-merrow-podcast.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://johnmerrow.blogspot.com/2005/10/college-admissions-john-merrow-podcast.html&lt;/a>
(It's long and kind of redundant, but worth listening to at least part way through). I think it make it very clear that with or without SAT's, colleges look at GPA as being the most important factor, and that the elite colleges use SATS mostly as lines of demarcation between top students coming from top schools. They do not expect students coming from high schools which afford less opportunity to score as well (so there goes the "national standard" argument), and they do not like underachievers, simply because they view the GPA as being most predictive of college success. So I think those students who think that a higher SAT is going to bridge the GPA gap are delucing themselves.</p>

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<p>Epiphany:</p>

<p>I don't get your point, either, about the 3.75 students who feel they need to leave the country and what that has to do with the SAT.</p>

<p>My understanding is that even if the colleges wanted to, they could not admit all the applicants with perfect GPAs and perfect SATs. So these perfect or near perfect students go to slightly less selective but equally excellent colleges. The colleges are excellent because the faculty there is indistinguishable from the most selective ones and the students are their own peers, as calmom said. This is one factor that has raised the quality at many colleges; it's not just the increased wealth of colleges but the higher quality of the students, drawn sometimes, by merit money.<br>
So I don't see why any American student needs to leave the country to get a good education. As well, I don't see what the SAT has to do with it. Can you elaborate?</p>

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<p>calmom: Thanks for bringing the discussion back down to earth. For a minute there I thought I was on another planet.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I think it make it very clear that with or without SAT's, colleges look at GPA as being the most important factor, and that the elite colleges use SATS mostly as lines of demarcation between top students coming from top schools.

[/quote]

Agreed.

[quote]
They do not expect students coming from high schools which afford less opportunity to score as well (so there goes the "national standard" argument), and they do not like underachievers, simply because they view the GPA as being most predictive of college success. So I think those students who think that a higher SAT is going to bridge the GPA gap are delucing themselves.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The accurate word is "yardstick" not "standards." The French have national standards and a national yardstick against which to measure whether students meet these standards or not. Americans do not have national standards (4 years of math for example is not a standard); colleges try to use the SAT and ACT as yardsticks to compare GPAs and from diverse kinds of transcripts from different districts and different teachers. The ACT, which is supposed to be more closely associated with the curriculum than the SAT reasoning test, and the SAT-IIs can be used to gauge the level of preparation. As Garland says, SAT-IIs work against less well-prepared students (whether or not colleges should give an edge to less wlle-prepared students is another discussion) </p>

<p>But just because they use the SAT or ACT for comparison and for validation does not mean colleges use the SATor ACT as the most important factor in their decision-making processes, as borne out by the many many posts of admitted or rejected students with their stats. </p>

<p>Colleges view GPAs indeed as the most important predictive factor. If the student comes from a well-known school, the adcoms can rely on the GPA. If the GPA is lower than the SAT, the reaction, rightly or wrongly (and I suspect it can go either way), the student will be deemed not to have worked to his or her full potential. Parents of such students may howl at the unfairness of not using the SAT to demonstrate their student's real abilities, but the GPA does play a more important role than the SAT.</p>

<p>If the student comes from a poorly performing school, a high GPA can show that the student has achieved high within the context of that school. A high SAT score will validate the GPA. A low SAT score will cast doubt on how well prepared the student is despite the high GPA. Some colleges may take a risk on the students, others will pass up. </p>

<p>The more I think of it, however, the more I agree with Epiphany's point that the SAT counts for more in the consideration of apps from average students than from the top ones. The top ones have many other ways of demonstrating excellence than the SATs: APs, awards, college-level coursework. Less stellar students have less to offer as gauges of their achievements and their level of preparation for college and their GPAs are hard to evaluate because the schools are less well-known. Chances are, too, that many of these students will apply to schools that are numbers-driven: driven by the sheer number of applications to look at students as sets of numbers: GPAs plus board scores. So I agree that SATs count for more for these students. I don't know what remedy could be applied. Again, this is not a resounding endorsement of the SAT, but for a yardstick. </p>

<p>Recently, I was on a committee to select applicants for grants. The committee had received about 100 applications. The criteria for selection were vague, there was a rating system but not a ranking one. Members of the committee spent many hours individually reviewing folders and then more hours discussing. We must have duplicated the kind of discussions that go on at college adcoms: "I know the applicant and s/he is... (compare with: "I know the school and the GC...") or "How can I compare the applicant who has done xyz against the applicant who has done abc?" At the end of a marathon session, we all asked for clearer guidelines and better defined yardsticks. I feel sympathy for adcoms handling 20k applications or more.</p>

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<p>"Do these 3.8 GPA kids really think they are too smart to attend a public university or a college that happens to fall on the lower half of the US News first tier list, or on the 2nd tier page?"</p>

<p>As Marite pointed out, & as I also (partially) said earlier, for those of you who will reread my post, please, 3.8's with scores that don't quite match that are not getting where they would get even a couple of yrs. ago. Those spots are going to the 3.8's - 4.0's who are the overflows from top tiers (& with high scores). I don't think it's a matter of "too good" or "too smart" or whatever. What I've seen, & what these students have experienced, is that there's a big drop. And yes, often the <em>majority</em> (not just an element of this group, a majority) of students at the next tier "down" are often 3.2's. Again, I'm talking about the most populated/popular regions, more metropolitan in character. Such a movement has been almost overnight, for some schools. Literally last year's qualifiers are this year's "rejects." If you haven't had the crystal ball to predict that would happen to you (if you were going by consistent trends), you were often just out of luck. However, overseas locations where competition was less & spots were still open, have been taking those folks, & many of them have gone there. It just seems a bit extreme to have to do that over a <em>score</em>, which when combined with a GPA, can bump you to another country. (3.8's with higher scores have been more fortunate.)</p>

<p>Nor is it just a matter of peer students. It's a question of the curriculum that in some cases is challenging for a 3.2 but considerably less so for a 3.8. </p>

<p>"If things have gotten so competitive that kids with 3.8 GPA's can only get into colleges ranked #65 and below on the US News list, then that is where the other 3.8 GPA kids will be going." </p>

<p>No. That's just the problem. 3.8 GPA kids who score well enough on the SAT will not be mainly going to the same college that the 3.8 with 100 points less will be going. And yet I maintain that the latter does not necessarily belong with a majority of 3.2's (or even less, in some cases). That's what we're discussing here on this thread -- i.e., the ramifications of a litmus test such as a score. (A disqualifier for <em>non</em> upper-tier students, which is absurd, in my view, paticularly the further down one travels in the quality/offerings of the college.) I totally understand it as an imp. element for an upper-tier. I was not born yesterday. With those kinds of application #'s you are going to have to employ a number of not just qualifying but overtly disqualifying elements, which will include scores & any other possible disqualifer.</p>

<p>HH: This is the planet where we are discussing the pluses, minuses, & alternatives to the SAT, and/or its advisability. Reasons & ramifications play into that. However, you may visit another planet or even an imaginary galaxy, should you wish.</p>

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<p>Epiphany:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Nor is it just a matter of peer students. It's a question of the curriculum that in some cases is challenging for a 3.2 but considerably less so for a 3.8.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Can you elaborate? Do you mean the high school or college curriculum? Because essentially, there is no college curriculum. A more advanced student will take more advanced classes. There are lots more to choose from than in high school. And as a result, there are lots more colleges a student can do well at. The only reason S2 was limited in his range of colleges was his advanced math. Math is a highly sequential field. But S1, the humanities major, could have thrived a a huge number of institutions including many that were not top-50. His main criterion was size. Some of the classes he took were more advanced than others depending on the field they were in and his own strengths and interests.</p>

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<p>epiphany: Sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded, and I regretted it after I wrote it. I kind of resent the statement that a 3.8 can't fit in with a 3.2. These are people, after all, not numbers. A 3.8 is going to have to get used to 3.2's in the real world. Maybe now is a good time to learn that. I'm surprised that you would think that way since you have an LD daughter. I also have an LD son, and I am very used to not categorizing kids by numbers because of it. A 3.2 can be an LD kid and be perfectly at home with your 3.8's in some areas - though maybe not in others. Also, some kids take a while to grow up - some may not have been great achievers in hs but have the smarts to do so in college - therefore fitting in with your 3.8's. I just kind of take exception to your assumptions. Again, I apologize if I sounded rude.</p>

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<p>In the spirit of "fix it, not ditch it", wouldn't it be nice if we could find a viable intelligence/aptitude test that would take a few minutes instead of almost four hours? :)</p>

<p><a href="http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/newsbriefs-0605-frederick.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsroom/newsbriefs-0605-frederick.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>I loved that one. What are the other two items?</p>

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<p>Here is a link to the NYTimes article on Shane Frederick's "Cognitive reflection test" and the other two items:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/26/business/26scene.html?ex=1295931600&en=429b9d64d3b2005a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/26/business/26scene.html?ex=1295931600&en=429b9d64d3b2005a&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Thanks, asteriskea. </p>

<p>I have a question about the low-scoring men and women being more risk-averse and the relationship this question has to the other questions
Asking about investment strategy brings highly individual experiences and circumstances into play in a way that discussing how long it would take to cover a lily pond does not. And being averse to risk may trump "objective" knowledge of return on investment.
Low-income people may not be willing to take risks. and income usually correlates with levels of education. Still, I would not accept necessarily that the risk-averse respondents have low levels of education. What they might have is low levels of income.</p>

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<p>My daughter is a truly terrible writer. She is great in her field of science, but as her mother I have to be honest in saying that her writing, while grammatically correct, is boring, mechanical and uninteresting. She scored a four on the essay on a practice SAT that her prep class had graded professionally. That was a dead-on accurate score. She got an 8 on the essay on the SAT which, while a disaster for most CC'ers, was out of line with her ability. The reason she did as well as she did was that she was tutored (yep) on a very specific model, including a general opening statement and closing, and the use of three literary examples, one real life example, and one example from the American Revolution (a particular interest of hers) that she could adapt to any situation. That's exactly what she did and I still don't believe that the essay had any relationship to her actual abilities (or lack of same) and would tell the colleges absolutely nothing. Now, if a college wanted to see one of the scientific papers that she's written, they might gain some insight.</p>