<p>gpa/class rigor is more important because it shows how a student performs in a certain environment. The fact that student B was getting B’s and C’s shows that either the school is extremely competitive and there are many other harder working/smarter kids than him at his own school (at least a couple of people have to be getting an A range grade) or that the student simply did not try in class, but is a superior standardized test taker. A top school will only take the kids that are at or near the top of their respected environments unless the school is famous for being extremely competitive.</p>
<p>SAT scores/AP scores are still very important though.</p>
<p>For LearningInProg: He tends to take the average classes at our school, where it is easy to get at least an A. Thus, with the +4 GPA boost that he recieves, a 95 can turn into a 99 average, (approx. 4.3?)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, I’ve taken all honors and AP classes, fighting for B+'s/A-'s, and often not getting them. Since they are weighted only +6, my weighted GPA is barely 95 (4.0). I’m barely in the top 10 %. (37/420)</p>
<p>I know that his courseload puts him at a disadvantage in the college process, but how can class rank truly be an accurate indicator of academic success when people like him (and trust me, there are many) lower my standing from an admissions officer’s perspective?</p>
<p>For tjan91: Like I said above, Do my lower grades in harder classes really indicate that “others are smarter than me”, and that “I don’t try hard”?</p>
<p>Why would regular classes get a +4 boost? I’m used to the 4.0 system.</p>
<p>Also, I would ask how many people do get As in honors and AP classes at your school (Not A-s, As.) And how many A-s? Out of about how many people? That kind of info will probably be in your school profile so I think you are fine.</p>
<p>The answer is neither Student A nor B is getting into a top school. There are too many kids with higher GPAs and comparable SATs. For the sake of argument though, America is one of the few developed nations that cares so much about high school grades and so little about standardized test scores when it comes to college admission, relatively speaking of course. From my understanding, high school grades aren’t even considered in most developed countries. I think the reason for this is American colleges wish to compare you based on your immediate peers, not the whole country unlike other nations. This goes not only for grades, but for test scores, extracurricular accomplishments, the whole nine yards. Most admissions officers for competitive colleges will mention this during their Q&A session. That being said, I think we should shift to at least making scores weighed as heavily as grades. To be perfectly honest, the SATs is no longer an aptitude test, and while it is not necessarily an achievement test it measures attributes that are very necessary for success in college: knowledge of high school math, critical reading, a strong vocabulary, grammar, test taking skills, etc. To be honest, when people say “oh SATs don’t mean anything about a person” they are making a fallacious statement. Now, you may say, that the GPA measures 4 years of diligence, handing assignments, etc. and that the SATs is just 4 hours of filling in bubbles. That is frankly looking at it from a highly simplistic point of view. Fact is, one’s performance on the SATs is influenced by not only how smart they are but also how well their high school has prepared them from college. It isn’t something someone automatically just gets a 2300 on. Furthermore, we don’t even know what one’s high school GPA measures. With the quality of high schools in the U.S. so highly variable one cannot know if the grades were earned through hardwork and diligence or by just showing up to class. In fact, we don’t know if they were earned by cheating. What we do know, however, is that everyone takes the SAT/ACT and we also know the biases intrinsic in the SAT/ACT, which make them much more easily analyzed by college admissions officers. Now, I understand the SAT is not a perfect way of admitting students, and not caring about grades and class rank could be just as destructive as not caring about test scores. For those who say, some kids are just bad test-takers, I can just as easily say there are some kids who have reasons why their GPA is low, perhaps uninteresting teachers, bad handwriting, etc. Furthermore, one’s college grades are dependent mainly on exams, not extra credit or participation. The real crux of the problem is that our colleges put too much faith in something, GPA, that may not have a lot of meaning. Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>Um…what about the socioeconomic implications? And the fact that much of the SAT math is not “high school math”. It is middle school. The grammar patterns are absurdly repetitive, and the CR…just seems ambiguous. Admittedly, I didn’t score <em>that</em> high, but even to me it seems pretty coachable and easy.</p>
<p>How about there’s a VERY strong correlation between intelligence (what the SAT score is strongly dependent on) and socioeconomic status. So, the reason why lower class kids, ON AVERAGE, score worse on the exam is simply because they’re not as intelligent, ON AVERAGE. To put it into a more illustrative context; basically every doctor is smarter than everyone who works construction (yes there are outliers but it’s probably around 99.9%). So the doctors have children who possess a genetic disposition to be highly intelligent due to the intelligence of their parents. The contruction workers also have children with similiar intelligence. It’s safe to assume that the doctor’s children, those of the higher economic class, will score significantly better than the construction worker’s children, those of the lower economic class. </p>
<p>Also, as much as everyone believes it, the SAT can not be bought. It can be “cracked” some what but everyone can afford it because there’s so much test prep material available for free or less than $20.</p>
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<p>The “level” of the math is inconsequential and independent of the difficulty. There are plenty of arithmetic problems that baffle professional mathematicians while plenty of differential calculus problems are easily solved by some high school seniors. The highest level math competitions for high schoolers are composed entirely of algebra problems. Yet, the questions are extremely difficult. The same goes for the SAT. The math is low level but the question difficulty can be quite high.</p>
<p>The level of the math is not important. The majority of errors made in any math problem are a result of “stupid mistakes”,( ex. negative signs). The math section tests attention to detail more than the complexity of the math.</p>
<p>Could not have said it better myself. There’s no way you can buy a 2400 when you are naturally an 1800, 2000, or probably even a 2100 scorer on the SATs.</p>
<p>
That is because our English classes today do not highlight reading comprehension as much as essay writing. That is why it seems ambiguous to most people, we haven’t been asked questions like that in a long time. The CR is absolutely not ambiguous, why do some people get almost every question right on it? It’s not by chance.</p>
<p>
Really? That’s news to me. Even though algebra and geometry may be learned in middle school or early high school, the way the math questions are asked, it would take a truly extraordinary middle-schooler to do very well on the math section of the test. Let me ask you this, how come students who self-report taking calculus, a college math course, score a 600 on average on the math section?</p>
<p>
Fair enough, but the writing section is still the lowest scoring section on the SAT’s. The reason you think it is absurdly repetitive is that it tests the same things over and over in a very visible way. That is how the CR section works, believe it or not. It is just that most of us find the CR section to be pretty difficult and we blind ourselves from seeing the patterns. Absurdly repetitive=/=easy.</p>
<p>“Really? That’s news to me. Even though algebra and geometry may be learned in middle school or early high school, the way the math questions are asked, it would take a truly extraordinary middle-schooler to do very well on the math section of the test. Let me ask you this, how come students who self-report taking calculus, a college math course, score a 600 on average on the math section?”</p>
<p>It definitely is middle-school math. There are many students in the area/school who got 800s in lower grades (like 6th, 7th) and many students who score above 700 for JHU programs and the like. They are not even particularly brilliant. They just know the very basic math concepts on which CB tests you.</p>
<p>Many? Considering a score of 800 is the 99th+ percentile for high school seniors on the SAT math section and a 700 the 95th percentile chances are you live in an area with a superb educational system. I’m not saying that kids in middle school can’t score 800, in fact, I know a few of them, as I too live in an area with an excellent educational system. However, this is no pedestrian feat or even an excellent feat. The fact remains that very few high school seniors can score that well and even far fewer middle schoolers.</p>
<p>Oh, I know. The educational system is decent, but not excellent. However, the gifted program is strong (100+ kids a year in each class), and most of them score higher than 600, and many (truly) score even higher.</p>
<p>Obviously, they are gifted in terms of a narrow definition, but they aren’t superhumans or anything. You learn the concept in class, and you regurgitate it on the SAT. This isn’t the AMC or AIME we’re talking about hear. No thought necessary. Chug-and-plug.</p>
<p>Obviously, the percentiles indicate that many students do not score very highly on the math portion. That has more to do with the educational system’s quality than the SAT’s difficulty. I actually don’t think very highly of the math portion because it is so useless. It measures math that every single student should know, most of it years before taking the SAT.</p>
<p>Yup, in my area many do well in middle school on the math section. It should be noted that the argument “Well, people taking calculus don’t get 800s!!!111oneoneoneone!” is absurd. That’s exactly my point. People taking calculus in high school probably learned the vast majority of stuff in the math section in middle school, or freshman year.</p>
<p>No, it is perfectly legitimate. You were trying to discount the Math Section saying that it tests middle school math. I said that, if it only tests middle school math, then why would kids taking Calculus not be able to score high? If a test measured only middle school vocabulary, I’d expect the kids in an AP English Class to all get near a perfect score. The SAT Math is different in that, although the core material may be learned in middle school, that does not make it a test that tests middle school math. If you want an extreme example, look at the Putnam Math competitions for college students. Assuming you’ve taken a year of college level math and did proficiently, you <em>technically</em> have all the information you need to ace it. However, you and I would both score woefully on that test, regardless of our mathematical preparation. In fact, many college Professors of math wouldn’t do well either. Therefore, most people would agree that it is <em>not</em> a test that tests college level math. Thus, just because a test tests only middle school information, that does not make it, in and of itself, a middle school math test.</p>
<p>^Then they should still know it. The SAT tests the math that people need to know to do well in college. That’s not calculus, which is often a college class. It is algebra and geometry.</p>
<p>The SAT is not a middle-school math test. It tests middle-school math. I don’t even know why they have it. But someone in calculus should still score well on it, because it requires the most basic understanding of previous math courses. If you have done well in previous math courses, there is no reason to score badly. You use SAT math all the time. It’s algebra. Arguably, the geometry may be obscure for some, but it takes zero effort to review it. I have not studied for the math SAT in five years, and I got an 800, having not taken courses that were on it in two years. I do not mean to inflate my ego; rather, to show that you should and probably do know the math from previous courses.</p>
<p>That being said, as an adcom, I would not put too much weight on the math portion. Rather, I would look for courses/Calc AP scores because those are probably more relevant to college class performance.</p>
<p>I have a 3.0 gpa and 4 and 5’s on 8 ap exams a sat score of 2170 and sat subject test scores math level 2 750 physics 740 us history 780. What are my chances of getting into an ivy league given the low gpa? Please be blunt</p>
<p>Err, try making your own topic rather than bumping up a post that’s 3 years old. But just for kicks, you’ve got great scores but that GPA is going to hurt you. Very low chance.</p>
<p>I have to disagree with some of the above posters. I think standardized tests are very important. I do think they are an absolute reflection of ability and frankly intelligence. Sorry.</p>
<p>Now, I also think equal weight should be given to gpa and class rank because hard work counts for a lot. Genius without discipline is wasted. I also think the “I don’t test good” is very tiresome and an excuse. Some people just aren’t as smart as others. And I am not being arrogant, my daughter can’t score high on math sat despite getting A’s in class because she just doesn’t have it, not because she is,a bad test taker. She excels in humanities and that is reflected in her test scores.</p>
<p>So while gpa, rank etc are extremely important I don’t think standardized test scores should be disregarded. Sometimes kids don’t work super hard in highschool but have amazing ability and will blossom in college. Those students should be given a place in college along with the hard workers. Just my,opinion.</p>