Colleges still unsure how to use new SAT

[asteriskea]

<p>Many colleges and universities are still not sure how to use the New SAT to its best advantage - as an admissions tool, for placement purposes or both. High school guidance counselors urge for the exam to be shorter, and for the writing portion to be optional. At Carnegie Mellon, Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University administrators want to see how SAT scores match up with students’ actual college performance before using it in admissions or placement and probably will not make up their minds until they crunch numbers that include the fall 2009 entering class.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07056/764841-298.stm[/url]”>http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07056/764841-298.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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“The research we have says that length doesn’t diminish ability,” said Mr. Caperton. “There is no differential in student performance on the writing portion when they take it at the beginning or the end of the test. I’m glad we decided not to make it optional.” Mr. Caperton also defended the three-hour-and-45-minute length of the SAT by comparing it to the much longer examinations that students in China and Europe must take to gain admission to colleges. Mr. Caperton said that those tests play a much larger role in determining where a student attends college than the SAT does in the United States. “We have to consider how do we compare to the rest of the world,” said Mr. Caperton, “because those are the people we’re competing with for jobs.”

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<p><a href=“http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/02/2007022804n.htm[/url]”>http://chronicle.com/daily/2007/02/2007022804n.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[asteriskea]

<p>

The college-going members of the high school Class of 2006 are first.</p>

<p>They’re the first to take the revamped SAT college entrance exam – including the added writing test. Colleges, universities and the College Board will be watching to see whether there’s a relationship between their SAT scores and how they did in college.</p>

<p>This month, the state Department of Education released the scores for the Class of 2006 for each public high school in the state in math, critical reading and writing.</p>

<p>The College Board used to give the states scores for nonpublic schools as well but no longer does so…</p>

<p>Writing didn’t hurt overall scores. All of the local top scorers are in the top 35 counting just critical reading and math…

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<p><a href=“http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07056/764840-298.stm[/url]”>http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07056/764840-298.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>With the class of 2006 now in college, I was just wondering how many times hs juniors and seniors are repeating the new SAT these days. One senior at our hs repeated the test 4 times while a few others took it three times. Much to their chagrin, they all wound up with remarkably consistent, statistically insignificant differences at each sitting - including their scores on the writing section. Is this happening elsewhere as well?</p>

[mathmom]

<p>My son took it twice. Results were virtually identical - 20 point increase in math. Big whoop. ;)</p>

[VeryHappy]

<p>My son took it twice. Math stayed the same, Writing went up 50 points, and Crit Read went DOWN 80 points! Of course, most schools use the highest of each section, regardless of whether they were taken at one sitting. So going down doesn’t hurt. But still . . .</p>

[LadyLou]

<p>I took the test 3 times, went up 150 points first re-take, and then on the third sitting one portion went up 100 points (writing, from 680 to 780) whilst the other two sections went down a combined 60 points. Overall, if you ‘superscore’ and increase of 250 points. It’s interesting to note the differences I had in study for the test. First and second takes I did very little work at all, third attempt did a lot of prep (specifically for writing) and went down in 2/3 sections. I think how much you improve depends on how close to your maximum you were on first sitting, for me, lack of not just revision peparation, but also mental preparation made my score pretty weak.</p>

[Perplexitudinous]

<p>I have taken the new SAT twice. The first time I took it, I got a math score of 640; the second time, 770, after a good deal of prep. I didn’t really start working very hard in my math classes (ie more than to get an A) until Algebra 2, which could possibly explain why I didn’t do so well the first time; after all, the SAT emphasizes more basic math. I re-took a full year after the first sitting, but when I began SAT prep I was scoring in the low 600s consistently on the practice tests, so I don’t think the time difference accounts for the math improvement. Writing went from 630 to 710; I think part of this comes from having an easier essay question, and the rest from an extra year of experience writing.</p>

<p>I don’t think the length is much of an issue. The test is exhausting but everyone is equally exhausted, so in the end it doesn’t matter. Of course, if the sections you’re good at come last… that’s just the way it is. No standard is perfect, but at least there’s a standard.</p>