<p>Heavily quoted in coverage of the Wake Forest policy change was faculty member Joseph Soares, Associate Professor or Sociology. Soares’ book, The Power of Privilege: Yale and America’s Elite Colleges, demonstrates how reliance on test scores is a de facto reverse affirmative action policy. Referring to the SAT, Soares said “IT’S A ROTTEN PREDICTOR OF COLLEGE GRADES. It’s a very reliable predictor of family income. If you are picking students from the higher end of the SAT bell curve, you are overwhelmingly picking students from economically privileged backgrounds.”</p>
<p>Another heads up: At my school, AP classes are weighted 2 points more than average classes, and 4 points more than remedial level classes. The person who is ranked SECOND in my class (of 450) hasn’t taken a single AP, and rarely takes honors courses. Additionally, honors courses are weighted THE SAME as AP classes. Fair?</p>
<p>On a deeper note, I’m not so much complaining about peer-to-peer comparison, I’m talking about school-to-school comparison. Is there any way to measure how similar certain classes are if they’re taught at different schools? Yes(at least at the AP level): standardized tests. </p>
<p>Also, I’m not so much praising the SAT’s (or ACT’s) to be the all-tell indicator of a students academic potential/drive/achievement, I just think that it should be valued more than GPA and class rank. Does anybody agree with this?</p>
<p>Whether or not you do well in school/academics is more important than whether or not you can do well on a test that supposedly measures your aptitude.</p>
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<p>No, I would think a college admissions essay and interview are much better assessments of an applicant’s ability to communicate.</p>
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<p>You’re asking the wrong question. The correct question to be asking is whether or not any one outside of your schools cares, and the answer to that question is no.</p>
<p>Colleges care more about the transcript than about the ranking. Ofcourse at most schools the students who have the best grades and the most rigorous courseloads are the top students. To draw the conclusion that colleges care about the ranking–which is merely a byproduct–more than the transcript is the wrong conclusion to draw.</p>
<p>GPA is so important because hard workers in high school are more likely than high standardized test scorers to work hard and make good grades in college. I know quite a few people who have scored very high on standardized tests (National Merit, 35 ACT, you name it) but could care less about academics.</p>
<p>Why are so many posts in CAPITAL LETTERS? Maturity is a plus, and more aesthetically pleasing to boot, so let’s refrain from this childishness.</p>
<p>I tend to align myself pretty closely with Roger_Dooley’s assessment of standardized tests. Current studies are far too broad to have any semblance of accuracy. The SAT could have a negative correlation with ug GPA, who knows? Fluctuations in grading approaches from department to department, school to school, and even from teacher to teacher make it really difficult to come up with something definitive. I do agree with Roger’s hypothesis about the outcome of his experiment, however.</p>
<p>What is a major problem are all these people that pat themselves on the back for disliking the SAT. Yes, it’s only one test. But it’s been around long enough to, with the exception of the essay (its ridiculousness has been well-chronicled around these parts), be a pretty good test of the skills that it tests. There are very few inherently poor, ambiguous questions that do not have a clear best answer, and for that reason I give CB a lot of credit. Is it the best test? Absolutely not. But the math, critical reading, vocabulary, and grammar are important skills to have, and they are tested in an adequate fashion. Standardized tests could be much worse.</p>
<p>I’m going to pose a question to the socially liberal zealots who have said in this thread that, “SATs are at best a predictor of your income” or something along those lines. Why do you think this is? Do tell. Are there questions/skills on there that are inherently unfair to less-affluent folks? While such a correlation (income v. score) might exist, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is anything unfair (this gets into whole other socio-economic debates). I would also add that affirmative action clears up a lot of these problems when URMs are involved.</p>
<p>The SAT’s function in college applications is really difficult to sum up, and I think it depends on the student and the school. I would think there are four categories that applicants would fall into:
- The applicant that has scores that exceed the 75th percentile for the school in all three sections (ex. 800-800-800 at HYP).
- The applicant that is at the higher end of the 25th-75th scale overall (ex. 770-780-750 at HYP).
- The applicant is comfortably in the 25th-75th range overall, decidedly slanted towards the 25th (ex. 720-740-740 at HYP).
- The applicant is below the 25th-75th range for the school. (ex. 680-700-690 at HYP).</p>
<p>I tend to look at college admissions as a threshold; if there’s enough good in your application to accrue enough “points” or whatever to get over the tipping point, then you’re accepted. #1 is given a significant bump, #2 is helped a little, #3 stays where he/she is, #4 has some points deducted. So, while your score range does have an effect, it will never make or break you either way. The 2400s still have to earn their way in, and 2050’s (at HYP) can blow an adcom away with EC’s, grades, and essays.</p>
<p>Great post aminhamenina.</p>
<p>OK let me clarify my argument here. </p>
<p>According to most of the above arguments, Student A puts more effort into his/her academic career than Student B simply because he/she has a higher GPA and still takes “hard classes”. (Regardless of how easy Student A’s classes actually were)</p>
<p>In such a (common) situation, GPA is not a fair indicator of the effort a student puts into academics. </p>
<p>On another note, in response to sleepy_sentry’s post, What high school student has any idea what they want to do with the rest of their lives? Sure, there are plenty of high SAT students who blow away their potential, but the vast majority of students have ONE goal in mind: get into college. I think the statistic is that 75% of college students change majors at least once. Why should a student be motivated to do well in classes that they find useless (in my case, foreign language, which is a requirement). Just because a student isn’t motivated in high school doesn’t mean they’re going to be unproductive their entire lives.</p>
<p>endnote: This doesn’t mean that I hail the SAT’s as an all-powerful indicator of college potential either…</p>
<p>Not everyone can afford private tutors and test prep courses.</p>
<p>Regarding post #1,
Given the stats I have seen for the past 3 years at my public HS and
locals who go to private school, student B in fact gets in to better schools
almost every time (given that the GPAs reflected are at the end of the
Junior year and not at the end of the senior year- your GPA at the end
of senior year is too late for admittance typically).</p>
<p>Private school students on par with public school students
(within the limited context of ~90 students across 3 years) always seem
to be at a disadvantage especially when their SAT scores are lower.</p>
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<p>And despite what it may seem like on this site, a very small percentage of SAT takers actually do take prep courses.</p>
<p>But really what do people want elite colleges to do? There are way more high GPA students than high-SAT/ACT students. As others have said the SAT isn’t perfect but combined with GPA it does end up being a pretty good tool.</p>
<p>Maybe the percentage of students receiving tutoring and taking test prep courses vary by area. Several of my coworkers’ children and some students at my D’s high school took the prep courses. Why? (1) Some schools post the SAT score threshold for their scholarships; (2) They wanted to qualify for National Merit; and (3) They thought it would give them an admission’s edge. Needless to say, for the most part their GPA’s weren’t reflective of the high SAT scores. None of the kids that I know for sure that took the prep got into top schools. So in the end, they will be attending the same schools they probably would have had they not received the additional assistance.</p>
<p>GPA/Rigor > SATI(I)/ACT</p>
<p>4 years > 4 hours</p>
<p>I agree with whoever said most top colleges have the luxury of picking the people who have both high GPAs and high SATs/APs lol. I don’t think the Ivies and other top colleges are going to accept anyone who is extremely good with standardized tests but sux in school and vice versa. A good balance between the two has to be more desirable.</p>
<p>SAT prep courses are useless, for those of you who might care</p>
<p>the way the admissions officer at Stanford put it, “we think performance over 3 years indicates more than performance on a few saturday mornings”</p>
<p>see, a 250 points on SAT I is a BIG difference. if you look at percentiles, then their scores of about 600-700 are really NOT cutting it…</p>
<p>Plus, even if AP scores are totally ignored, SAT IIs count heavily in admissions and have a high correlation rate…I got 5/800 and 5/750…</p>
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<p>Do you seriously think that if all of these factors were considered that SAT scores could ever become better predictors of undergraduate success than GPA and class rank are?</p>
<p>Standardized tests are not that hard to prep for, and anyone who says he/she is a bad test taker is making up excuses. If you suffer from anxiety attacks (and I know people who do), then it’s genuine. If you go in and can’t think the problem through, only person to blame is yourself.</p>
<p>And then there’s the difference between the ACT and SAT and how different students do on them. My kids have done very well on the ACT and very mediocre on the SATs and subject tests. I think the different formats work better with some students than others. How is a college supposed to figure THAT out, in addition to everything else? Is it simply because of the way students learn, or the way they’ve been taught?</p>
<p>We’re awfully glad around here that most colleges now embrace the ACT!</p>
<p>UC study shows SATs do not predict college success
[California</a> Aggie // Jul 21, 08 // UC study shows SATs do not predict college success](<a href=“http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/1166]California”>http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/1166)</p>
<p>schmoo… can you elaborate on your post #22. You’ve indicated that the person who is second has not taken an AP classes and very few honors classes. While you have taken AP/Honors that have 2 points over the Average. What classes does the second person take remedial/average? and if so, help me understand how they are ranked #2?</p>