I dont know if it is just these boards, but I feel like the results from the New SAT seem pretty high and as a result, colleges are raising their scholarship requirements. Do you think that they will make the New SAT more difficult? Will they adjust the curve?
The colleges would adjust their scholarship requirements anyway. They have been through several changes of SAT score format and scale within the last 10 years. In any case, one cannot compare the new SAT score with even CR+M directly. During the transition, they may just use the concordance table from CB.
The easier it gets to prepare, the higher the scores will be. Scores for the current and “old” are both much higher than scores in the 80’s.
Remember that almost everything me only took it once in the 80s.
I took SAT once A’s sophomore more for admission to a selective HS and once as senior. I took ACT on de as junior. Had no idea what a superscore was or if that was even a thing then. Used the booklet handout from ACT and SAT for prep.
Keep in mind that the scores on “these boards” are by no means representative of the general testing population, too. There’s a certain element of selection bias involved in engagement on an academic forum. Too many children are given a very inaccurate picture of college admissions from reading those “1590 - SHOULD I RETAKE” threads.
^ OP is referring to the higher score of the new SAT scale. Not just on this forum. The new score is around 30-70 higher than the old CR+M score with matching percentiles.
I am curious about this. I am seeing conflicting info., with some saying that at the mid/lower levels are coming in higher but that at the higher end the new SAT is actually coming in with lower scores. If someone has a source/study about how the new SAT is comparing to the old or ACT scores, I’d be interested in seeing it.
@ColoSky There is a concordance table at collegeboard. The numbers may change slightly after they have a larger sample size.
Thanks! Yes, I know about the concordance table. I am wondering how accurate those are.
It is up to time how to curve the score. So they can make that table accurate by giving scores strictly tied to the percentile. However, they may revise the table when there are more data available. The new SAT is now more than a year old. On the other hand, different schools may have their only version of concordance table as in the past. This is not the first time SAT changed their score format and scale. I have seen admission stat from 2016 that the mid 50 scores in new and old SAT do not line up with this table already.
Me, too. I noticed that Williams posted their admitted student info for the class of 2021, including separate averages for the old and new SAT. The new SAT averages were LOWER than the old SAT averages, suggesting that students did not score higher on the new SAT (unless somehow there was an impact this year in terms of which of their successful applicants took which tests).
The old-new SAT concordance tables will not matter much going forward, because almost all applicants will be reporting only the new SAT. But for entering seniors trying to figure out where they stand relative to colleges of interest to them, I think it is hard, because common data sets for the class of 2021 won’t come out until the fall, so it will be hard to predict where your scores will be relative to the mid-50 percent range and averages.
I also wondered, when scores are sent to a college, does it include the percentile? For example, if a student received a 1400 and that was 95th percentile (hypothetical numbers), does the percentile get reported with the score or is it just the score that is reported?
Collegeboard needs to revisit that concordance table. It is making claim the new SAT will score higher than the corresponding level of old SAT, and yet more evidence is culminating the reverse is true. This is from an article post 4 days ago… “2016 was not a good year for the average SAT exam taker, with scores in reading hitting an all-time low of 494, writing scores hitting their all-time low of 482, and math scores coming in at 508, which is the lowest average in the last 20 years…” I have students with high proficiencies in Math took the old test, and then took the new one in 2016, the result was stunning. The average M scores went from 780 to 720. The Reading section also became bery challenging for most students in 2016. Based on the newest released practice-test-7 and 8 (Oct 2016, and Jan 2017 versions), the Math section is actually getting more difficult with more challenging questions (less geometry, more advanced level algebra). Oh well…
It is actually comical in a sense how half the people think the new SAT is very easy and students are scoring a lot higher and half the people are thinking the exact opposite. And then there is the curve ball of who is actually taking the test and all the ACT stuff. And it seems to me everybody now is scoring a 34 in the ACT and they all are lining up to take it but wait a minute shouldn’t everybody be lining up to take the new SAT and hit those new super high scores.
Kind of funny.
Unless you find the admission stat for the current year already, there were not many 2016 freshmen submitted new SAT score for their admission. So the sample size is very very small and the margin of error is very big. For UMich, around 1/4 of the 2016 enrolled freshmen submitted SAT scores and they were mostly in the old format. Therefore, it is not surprising to see their new SAT mid 50 to be much higher (1440-1570) than expected.
@am9799 Indeed, it is the case as it is reflected by the percentile matching. Not necessary each student would make the matching score in ACT and SAT, but the population distribution is. In general, it is around 1/3 with matching score, 1/3 with higher SAT, and 1/3 with higher ACT. It is probably the same case between new and old SAT.
Just look at the PSAT concordance issues for Fall 2016 and you will see the challenge here.
I agree with you billcsho. I have a rising senior and we are finding it very difficult to compare her new SAT results with those listed on naviance and University websites.