<p>mini:</p>
<p>why didn’t your D’s school DROP the SAT entirely? Either it adds value or it doesn’t…[Cutting the baby in half is not a solution, IMO.]</p>
<p>Cutting the baby (going SAT-optional) doesn’t substantially change the admitted population of students, it just raises the reportable SAT numbers and provides a market(ing) niche. </p>
<p>Under an SAT requirement, students submitting below-par SATs were not rejected automatically; admission or rejection was based on further scrutiny of the grades and other factors. Under an SAT-optional system that treats SAT as just another extracurricular activity (good when scores are high, irrelevant otherwise), those students also are admitted or denied based on a closer scrutiny of the non-SAT factors, and are compared to a pool that still includes high-SAT students who provide the scores. The results should be about the same either way, but the low scorers are conveniently deleted from the 25-75 percentile data if they don’t submit SAT.</p>
<p>When only a few prestigious schools are SAT-optional it is just an application magnet for them, so increases the overall quality of their pool. The trouble with claims that “submitters and non-submitters performed similarly, therefore SAT is useless” is that it implies that the quality of selection would be the same if:
- SAT didn’t exist, and therefore,
- No market differentiation existed between schools requiring SAT and those not (the test no longer being an option for use in admission)</p>
<p>Sisirune - thank you for clarifying and qualifying what merely turns out to be a point of confusion in your post in which you quoted a particular phrase taken from another post (in text box) and then went on to hail the post as brilliant. </p>
<p>This is from Hamilton College after a five-year in-house study:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.hamilton.edu/news/more_news/display.cfm?id=10468[/url]”>http://www.hamilton.edu/news/more_news/display.cfm?id=10468</a></p>
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<p>Also not to throw the baby out with the bathwater - “Making SAT Scores Optional in Selective College Admissions:A Case Study” by Michael Robinson and James Monks.</p>
<p><a href=“http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:JQnVFcSSU4cJ:www.mtholyoke.edu/~mirobins/monks.pdf+making+the+SAT+optional&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&client=firefox-a[/url]”>http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:JQnVFcSSU4cJ:www.mtholyoke.edu/~mirobins/monks.pdf+making+the+SAT+optional&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=3&client=firefox-a</a></p>
<p>And here’s a link to another study on the Mount Holyoke experience/experiment that updates some of the data from the Robinson/Monks study that Asteriskea linked above and asks some additional questions.</p>
<p>Michael D. Robinson and Cate Rowen, “Mount Holyoke College’s Experience with Option Submission of SAT Scores: An Analysis of the First Four Years,” Association for Institutional Research, 2005 Forum, San Diego, CA May 29-June1, 2005.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~mirobins/vitaaug.html[/url]”>http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~mirobins/vitaaug.html</a> (scan down the vita for a link)</p>
<p>It actually appears to be farily balanced, for example:</p>
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<p>I’d say! And no reason feeling “more right” than the one spelling CDS! </p>
<p>Should we look at the changes in REPORTED statistics for the 2000 and 2006 period? What are the TANGIBLE result of hocusing the number of submissions from the lower ranges? Does anyone REALLY believe the applicant and enrolled pools changed that much? </p>
<p>No wonder schools such Hamilton and Middlebury like the sleigh of hand so much. </p>
<p>CDS 2000 = SAT AVERAGE 1250<br>
Percent submitting SAT scores: 98%<br>
Number submitting SAT scores: 454<br>
2000 25th 75th<br>
Verbal 580 670<br>
Math 580 670 </p>
<p>CDS 2006 = SAT AVERAGE 1360<br>
Percent submitting SAT scores: 61%<br>
Number submitting SAT scores: 305<br>
2006 25th 75th<br>
Verbal 630 740<br>
Math 630 720 </p>
<p>Percent of first-time, first-year (freshman) students with scores in each range: </p>
<p>2000 SAT I Verbal SAT I Math<br>
700-800 14% 16%<br>
600-699 55% 54%<br>
500-599 27% 25%<br>
400-499 4% 5%<br>
300-399 1% </p>
<p>2006 Verbal Math<br>
700-800 42% 41%<br>
600-699 43% 45%<br>
500-599 11% 11%<br>
400-499 3% 3%<br>
300-399 1%</p>
<p>xiggi–
I am in the process of comparing two almost-identical 3rd tier LAC’s for my son, who is looking for merit aid and will lie in the top 20th percentiile.</p>
<p>Price, grades, scores, etc are identical. However, one school has 90% submit SAT’s, and is a school that attracts many more wealthy kids from private schools. The other is virtually all public-school kids, and 99% submit scores.</p>
<p>Having followed this discussion, and knowing that one of my son’s goals is to go to the school with the brightest kids he can, is there an unseen difference between these schools? In other words, are the wealthier kids’ SAT’s inflated due to prep, and 10% are hidden from the statistics?</p>
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<p>xiggi–we’ve been through this a thousand times. Middlebury now reports the SAT I scores of all students, regardless of whether they were used in admissions.</p>
<p>What about Claremont McKenna’s numbers? Oh, that’s right. They don’t even make their common data set available for public consumption. Talk about lack of transparency…</p>
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<p>Arcadia, you’ve got to keep up with a world that is less than static. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/registrar/IR/cds.asp[/url]”>http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/registrar/IR/cds.asp</a></p>
<p>As you know, I did NOT like the fact that CMC was late in publishing their data, and did not hesitate to criticize the administration for this lack of transparency. </p>
<p>And, fwiw, aren’t we all expecting the same from our schools: complete transparency, full disclosure, and as few shenanigans as feasible?</p>
<p>Ahhh, good for CMC. When did they make those available?</p>
<p>Here’s an interesting nugget of info. According to the 2006-2007 CDS, Middlebury and CMC had an identical percentage of first years who submitted SAT I scores (87%).</p>
<p>I want to thank everyone for the links to various empirical reports. Meanwhile, here is a quote from the Boston Globe Magazine’s interview with Anthony Marx, President of Amherst College, that captures the essence of how many of us think about the SAT:</p>
<p>“There is a terrible irony that the SAT, which was created to help ensure access based on merit, has in many ways become a barrier to access based on merit.”</p>
<p>Here is the link to the entire interview:
<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/09/16/open_campus[/url]”>www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2007/09/16/open_campus</a></p>
<p>Here’s a less serious appendix to this thread, a wry look at being the wife of a college president, by Robert Weisbuch’s spouse:</p>
<p><a href=“http://0-chronicle.com.library.colby.edu/weekly/v53/i33/33c00201.htm[/url]”>http://0-chronicle.com.library.colby.edu/weekly/v53/i33/33c00201.htm</a></p>
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<p>“Galumph” seems to define the Weisbuch couple pretty darn well.</p>
<p>Anyone know the term she used?–I like to keep up on my street slang. The last I heard was CMFM pumps.</p>
<p>xiggi. </p>
<p>It’s hard to take you seriously when you engage in this type of sniping. Why such a level of disrespect for these people? You’re obviously a bright person who has a lot to offer to CC; but I find this kind of comment extremely tiresome.</p>
<p>A. To move or run clumsily or heavily.
B. To prance about in a self-satisfied manner. </p>
<p>It seems that the term was coined in 1872 by Lewis Carroll in “Jabberwocky,” apparently by blending gallop and triumph.</p>
<p>Cadbury, what sniping would that be? </p>
<p>For the record, I find the repetitive accounts of Weisbuch’s greatness equally tiresome. Did the fusty mansion and hostessing to death have more relevance to this discussion than the red convertible? If issues is what is important, let’s leave the antics and personal trivia on the outside.</p>
<p>And, fwiw, seeing the term galumph penned by the clumsy Prez’ wife was a bait too hard to let go! :)</p>
<p>There is an joke; goes something like this - 'while the econometrician represses the problems of unreliable measures, the psychometrition (SAT designers and other similar psycho-corporations) conveniently represses the ‘omitted variable’ problem, assuming instead that the error of their measurement is randomly distributed. The correlation between SAT scores and performance is statistically significant (big deal) and weak, regardless of what it is correlated with; imagine if there were quasiexperiments that examined its relationship with ‘performance’ post-college. And one wonders whether the relationship between GPA and SAT is partially attributable by common methods variance (testing itself). Nevertheless, though its predictive validity is marginal, it has ‘utility’, in that the student pays for it and it assists college admissions staff in efficiently making/rationalizing/justifying choices. Its the game that most parties play right now. I wonder what it would be like to teach at a wonderful institution (excellence in teaching, student life, placement) that potential students view as wonderful, and the selection was random - perhaps some base HS GPA (2.5) and interesting/holistic profile. Would it be a disaster? I dougt it. Might students learn how to deal with others who have different backgounds and cognitive styles? I think so.
The reality is that past performance is not a great predictor of future performance and aptitude tests are even poorer predictors of future performance. Selection is a dismal science. But I guess its better than the days when the Ivy and best LACs were ‘open admission’, as long as you had the right profile and the money.
Remember (for those of us that have been there), the purpose of the 25th high school reunion is to provide everyone the opportunity to observe that HS stats and SAT scores predict little.
I have never been a prof at a college or university that would have accepted me as an undergrad. (subpar SAT). There are lots and lots of us out there, though we keep it quiet - thank God that your SAT score does not follow you. As I tell my students, do not feel inferior if your score was low and do not feel superior if they encroached perfection. The student that I like best is the one, who upon taking the test, sits for a while and reflects upon its misuse, thus leading to a 300 point drop in score. A century from now our great-great grand kids will look at the SAT the same way that we now look at measuring aptitude by the contours of the skull.</p>
<p>Xiggi,</p>
<p>I think your point about the external issues has some merit. That said…</p>
<p>Based on what I’ve seen/heard so far at Drew, I think Weisbuch is a bright, talented but decidely flawed president. I’m not sure who has referred to him as “great” in this discussion. I guess only time will tell if he ever deserves that type of admiration. (This is, after all, only his third year as president.) What disturbs me is that neither he nor his wife has posted anything here themselves; yet your comments are directed at them personally.</p>
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<p>Cadbury, do we really have sniping and personal “attacks?” Let’s address Mrs. Weisbuch first. Indeed, she did not come here to post herself, but someone copied and pasted her writing. I believe that her clumsiness was … self-admitted. Thus, I am not sure how anything I wrote could be elevated to a personal “assault”</p>
<p>On the other hand, I believe that you will recognize the following description of a person who has made a particular effort to shake up the academic establishment, but nonetheless does tend to act like a bull in a china shop: </p>
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<p>Please do tell me why my words ““Galumph” seems to define the Weisbuch couple pretty darn well.” are sounding that irritating, let alone disturbing? Or was it something else I wrote about Weisbuch in this thread?</p>
<p>xiggi. I guess I was responding to what I perceived as your tone–a perennial email/online problem. My apologies if it wasn’t your intent to simply be insulting to these folks.</p>