<p>Q, we do have physics folks allied with admissions. There is a range of kids who need this more authoritative look. There is a limit to how much we can ask someone to review, when their primary duties are elsewhere. When we get the yea, it’s usually smooth sailing for the kid. How much “yea” just depends on the year, what the pool is, what the dept needs.</p>
<p>In this environment, some self-propulsion is required. High achievement/stretch is an element of that. Our expectation for physics and engineering is also engagement with the challenges, mindset, team aspects. (Resilience can come from that; creative problem solving is fostered.) Plus, of course, elements that suggest well-rounded and likely to participate in more than simply what interests him or her, academically. We can cherry pick, for all that. But only up to a point. No one can totally predict, based on hs, what happens when the kid is enmeshed in the courses. Some get distracted by the buffet of other opportunities. Some want more balance. Some flame out. Sure.</p>
<p>No, all it tests is readiness to take the SAT.</p>
<p>Why do colleges still use it? I don’t know, probably because it’s only one piece of the admission puzzle and in the aggregate it’s minor. My point is that a SAT Score that is a couple hundred points higher than average can be run down by a lower scores with better holistic qualities, which again considering SAT limitations, seems to be logical.</p>
<p>BTW, SAT is changing which is a certain sign that it needs improvement.</p>
<p>If you are at a high level, you’re going to do very well on the SAT, regardless of preparation. </p>
<p>If you’ve taken through trig and know what you are doing, it’s pretty hard to not get the questions on the SAT math. No preparation is necessary.</p>
<p>I think that a promising student in math, engineering, or the physical sciences ought to be able to achieve the SAT M score that corresponds to missing 2 questions (or fewer), if English is the student’s native language. I think this would be true with no prep, as long as the student had the requisite math courses.</p>
<p>There could be exceptions: for instance, a student might mis-grid responses, in a way that the SAT computer doesn’t catch or credit. A student might not have understood the directions for entering the numbers in the non-multiple-choice section. A student might have had very little sleep ahead of the exam, for reasons that are not the student’s fault. A student might have been a crime victim a few weeks ahead of the SAT. A student might have a really high level of ADHD, and might have learned to compensate for it in the normal course of schooling, but not on the SAT M.</p>
<p>However, aside from those exceptions, I think that it is probable that a student who misses more than 2 questions just didn’t understand something about relatively elementary mathematics. It might click later or, or it might haunt the student later on, in a STEM field.</p>
<p>Adding to QM’s point, a study by Hsu and Schombert on University of Oregon students has shown that below SAT-M score of roughly 600, the probability of success in math/physics majors is very low. Interestingly, no similar SAT threshold exists in other majors, including biology.</p>
<p>So, sosomenza, if you knew that one student had an 800 in verbal and the other had a 400, you wouldn’t think this implied anything about their respective abilities to comprehend and analyze texts? And you don’t think those abilities are going to be relevant to both their college coursework and their performance in a wide variety of professions?</p>
<p>Lest I appear to be a hyper-elitist, I think that a student who misses more than 2 questions on the SAT M due to “just not getting it” could definitely learn to solve those problems, and problems that are much harder. And I think that K-12 schooling definitely plays a role in whether the student has ever seen questions that are sufficiently challenging to give the student the opportunity to learn to “get it.” </p>
<p>So I wouldn’t exclude a student from a STEM major (other than biology) on that basis–definitely not! However, I wouldn’t expect the student to start at the same level of coursework as students who did “get it.” I think that longer undergrad programs would be preferable for students who have the desire and need time to catch up, so that they complete their degrees more or less on par with everyone else. The Gates Foundation or some similar group might consider funding a program of this type. The obligation shouldn’t fall on the students, who have been inadequately prepared by their high schools.</p>
<p>It varies from session to session, but somewhere around 730 to 740 is probably on the low side of scores for missing two questions.</p>
<p>Please note that I don’t rule students with lower scores out of the more mathematical side of STEM, but if they missed the questions because they didn’t understand them, they will have some catching up to do.</p>
<p>Some students may make more than two “stupid mistakes”–i.e., the kind that cause you to slap your palm to your forehead and say, “Oh!” </p>
<p>Also, on rare occasions, CB is just wrong about the answer. That has happened once (with a problem in geometry involving locus) that I know about, when the tests were released. It may happen other times when the Q&A service is not available.</p>
<p>But I think that a student who is prone to missing questions he/she should get needs to work to overcome that, to be successful in a STEM field. A student who didn’t get the questions because he/she didn’t understand the math needs to play catch-up.</p>
<p>The problem might be limited to a narrow area–for example, probability and combinatorics may be poorly taught or not taught at all in some high schools. It does not take too long for a student to learn that, though, if the other parts of the mathematical foundation are there.</p>
<p>I’d say a one time test difference of 400 points on a multiple choice test isn’t reliable enough to predict the future of anyone. BTW, I was talking about 200 points on the entire test. One needs to realize that 2200 SAT, against a 2000 SAT with better overall holistic credentials, is likely to lose out, which I think is right.</p>
<p>Yes, point made, but the problem is that some not so promising students can get a great score through mimicry and perseverance. Anyway so who’s the real deal and who’s the great pretender? We just don’t know, hence the other admission factors.</p>
<p>Perhaps there are people who ace the SAT by studying a lot, or being tutored, as some kids ace classes by studying a lot, in both cases to the detriment of developing any other skills?</p>
<p>So the kid who aces the SAT with no prep is likely quite different from the one who puts in many hours getting ready for it. Maybe the first kid used the time to do something interesting…learn a musical instrument or get good at a sport or start a business or work with a charity. </p>
<p>Then one step further, what if that kid who did one or more of those things and didn’t do test prep got 100-200 points less on the SAT? Would s/he still be a more valuable candidate?</p>
<p>D didn’t have time to study or be tutored for exams. She showed up and took them and did just fine. Then we figured she should retake them since she is now familiar with the material. Got exactly the same scores the second time. So we called it done.</p>
<p>I’m not discussing the value of applicants, OHMomof2. I am just saying that a student who misses SAT M questions because he/she didn’t understand how to work out the answers will need some additional work to get up to speed with the intro calc-based physics/math courses at many universities. I support arrangements to give catch-up opportunities to promising students who were short-changed by their high schools. MIT apparently has a summer program to assist with that–that’s a step in the right direction, but probably not enough (in my opinion).</p>
<p>Re Kennedy2010, post #373, I was just relying on PCHope’s precis in #366 of the study by Hsu and Schombert. They did not find a lower SAT threshold for biology majors, but did find one for the traditionally more quantitative STEM majors. The study was limited to University of Oregon students, as I understand it.</p>