<p>Someone who is at the top of the class and completed Algebra I and geometry, should score 500 these days since it is an adjusted median. </p>
<p>If you are not even in the middle of the pack nationally/worldwide but if you are at the top of your school class, there is obviously a problem with the school.</p>
<p>
Well, it could still be a testing problem. I just can’t see it as a one-time anomoaly, though.</p>
<p>I have a capable kid with a low processing speed. He aced calculus this year but if you gave him one of those third grade “30 problems in 2 minutes” tests of basic arithmetic he’d flunk it. His scores on the PSAT were below the converted SAT score 25th percentile for all of the schools to which he applied. Because he’s at an independent school where speed testing is not emphasized he’s never needed to qualify for extra time. We could have had him retested (his old testing is too old to be used) to a tune of a few thousand dollars, put him in SAT prep classes, and lobbied the school to get him officially given time and a half. Instead he skipped the SAT/ACT, applied to test-optional schools and let his professional certification in a math-dependent field speak for itself. He’d also do abysmally on the English section, despite the fact that he’s writing a novel his advisor wants to show his literary agent.</p>
<p>Not saying a hidden LD is this student’s issue-just pointing out that there are kids who do poorly on standardized tests yet well in the real world.</p>
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<p>I would revise the sentence to read “there are kids who do poorly on standardized tests yet well in college.” Specifically because there are virtually no college classes (at least in the top ones we have observed/experienced) that use any multiple choice testing at all. Which is why I also agree with calmom’s assertions; it is a test that is inapplicable to college, and is thus stupid.</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>Again, we must live parallel worlds. One populated by students who actually were sitting in college classes not too long ago, and a different one for the hearsay fanboys. Should we take a look at the testing in Econ classes – a major I happen to know a bit about?</p>
<p>Here’s is an appraisal of the real world:
<a href=“http://www.coba.unr.edu/faculty/kuechler/cv/DSJIE.3.1.05.pdf[/url]”>http://www.coba.unr.edu/faculty/kuechler/cv/DSJIE.3.1.05.pdf</a></p>
<p>Go to the bottom of page 2 to read “Most instructors appear to use MC as the preferred assessment tool. In economics, the MC usage is 45 to 67 percent.”</p>
<p>You can find similar research on the use of MC question in AP Testing
<a href=“http://www.economics-finance.org/jefe/econ/placonepaper.pdf[/url]”>http://www.economics-finance.org/jefe/econ/placonepaper.pdf</a></p>
<p>Oh well, why bother with data and evidence when a good fisherman tale will do! Indeed, no MC are used at selective colleges. :)</p>
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Why? Why are you even assuming that she had the time or the finances to retake? Maybe she took the exam the first time in October of her senior year, with her UC app due at the end of November. (Reasonable if she opted to take the SAT II’s the previous spring) </p>
<p>Let’s assume that the kid has higher scores on SAT II subject tests, which are tied to content knowledge, and was a common pattern for hispanic students, and that she had the good sense to take the Spanish SAT II (her native language) instead of or in addition to German (the language she studied in high school). Let’s hypothesize that she gets 700 on the Spanish SAT and averages 550 on 2 others. I think she had a 530 verbal (I don’t have time to check again, but you can redo my math if I’m wrong) - so gives her a net 2740 on all the exams, averaged out to just under 550 per test. She had mostly A’s on her transcript and I think some AP’s (again, I’m working from memory) – so lets hypothesize a 4.1 weighted GPA. I also have no way of retrieving the formula that the UC system was using back in those days for GPA, but I’m very sure that that given her GPA a combined 2740 on the tests would have been more than enough to qualify for UC admissions. (It was a sliding scale, the higher the GPA, the lower the requisite test scores). </p>
<p>(The reason I’m so sure is that my daughter’s GPA would not have been much higher than the one presented – I remember that my d’s unweighted high school GPA was about 3.85 – and because if the UC SAT II requirement and scheduling difficulties my daughter had to take some SAT II’s cold in the fall of her senior year - one in a subject that she had not yet taken in high school, and the other in a subject she had completed in 9th grade. I remember doing the math and telling her going in that as long as she could get away with some dismally low score on the SATs – probably below 400 – and still be good to go on the numbers. At that point we had already decided that my d. would not submitting ACTs rather than SATs to private colleges, so the only school that would ever see her SAT II’s would be the UC system). </p>
<p>You really don’t know the situation. For all you know, the kid simply had the bad luck to come down the flu when the SATs were given, without the flexibility or the money to reschedule. There could also be a learning disability impacting processing speed – her high achievement would have precluded her from being given special ed services in school, and the diagnostic requirements for getting extended time on the SAT’s are for rich people. (You need a recent, formal diagnosis from a qualified professional, which would have cost hundreds of dollars and required a good deal of advance planning). </p>
<p>But what we do know is how the UC system valued (or devalued) those scores: See: <a href=“http://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/committees/boars/boars.testingrpt.toRegents_000.pdf[/url]”>http://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/committees/boars/boars.testingrpt.toRegents_000.pdf</a> for a good history. </p>
<p>See also the 2002 report at <a href=“http://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/committees/boars/testsummary.pdf[/url]”>http://senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/committees/boars/testsummary.pdf</a>
.</p>
<p>Bottom line: the UC Regents felt that use of the SATs was questionable because it had less predictive value than high school GPA and they felt that scores were closely tied to socio-economic status. So a low test score from a high GPA, low SES applicant only confirms what the admissions people already know: the test design discriminates against poor people. </p>
<p>A lower SES kid in public school would be getting -0- advice about private school admissions. All info from her high school gc would be geared to UC & CSU admissions. At best, the gc would have tagged her early on as a strong UC prospect and helped ensure that she was enrolled in the right courses. So I can’t really think of a good reason for the kid in question to retake, unless she enjoyed sitting for standardized tests. </p>
<p>The UC ad com would NOT have used her SAT scores to draw questionable conclusions about the quality of her high school. Most likely they would have relied on the API score for the school and other published or internal data. (To suggest that the quality of the school is measured by the test scores of a particular student would mean that you would have to negate the achievements of my NM-qualifying son because other A students at his racially & ethnically diverse public high school did poorly on their SAT’s.) Obviously we don’t know what the API was of the high school in question, but the availability of at least 3 years of instruction in German suggests that it was not a low-end API school.</p>
<p>I can see the reasoning for dwelling on the SAT scores if that had been an application for an elite private college – but it wasn’t. It’s a failing of the Frontline piece that they didn’t present the cumulative score on all 5 SATs as well as an academic index numbers – though I can see why they didn’t want to get into those details – but the point is that the UC’s weren’t going to to pub much weight on SAT’s for a high GPA applicant, and the student’s high school gc would have known that.</p>
<p>
A high school student applying for UC admission in 1999 would have come through schools when the state was primarily using CAP (California Assessment Program), later renamed CLAS (California Learning Assessment System), which relied on open ended portfolio and writing assessments. See [California</a> Learning Assessment System: Portfolio Assessment Research and Development Project: Final](<a href=“http://www.ets.org/research/policy_research_reports/publications/report/1998/bvmo]California”>California Learning Assessment System: Portfolio Assessment Research and Development Project: Final Report)</p>
<p>Keep in mind that I have a son who graduated in 2001-- standardized testing was not really in vogue when he was coming through the schools. The test, test, and more test approach to K-12 education is more of a by-product of the failed NCLB program.</p>
<p>She should’ve just stayed in the kitchen.</p>
<p>"Specifically because there are virtually no college classes (at least in the top ones we have observed/experienced) that use any multiple choice testing at all. "</p>
<p>So what is the reason these “TOP” colleges average 2100+ SAT scores in their admissions? Why are they are obsessed about English majors needing 2300 + scores (I know at least two from Yale in 2016 batch who scored above 2350 majoring in English)?</p>
<p>They just happen to have high scores just does not fly.</p>
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<p>Actually, xiggi, the quote is “Many instructors appear to use…” (emphasis added). Not very hard data or evidence, if you ask me.</p>
<p>In any event, as I stated, my comment was specifically based upon my observation and inquiry concerning 8 years of my offsprings’ college courses, of which only one course (basic psychology) included some MC questions on the exam. Yes, this is anecdotal, but there was nothing unusual about the courses they selected, so any argument that MC exams are common in college was simply not true in our case.</p>
<p>Don’t you score 400 for just having a pulse?</p>
<p>
What make you think that the colleges are “obsessed” with those scores? The fact that two Yale English majors have high scores doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t have been admitted without them, or that other students in other majors don’t have weaker scores. </p>
<p>But here’s a reason that test scores are important to the elite colleges: on a statistical basis, the scores are an excellent proxy for family income. A school that aims for median scores of 700+ on each exam is a school that is going to end up with a class that has a class that tilts toward the upper end of the economic skill. They can say they are “need blind” for admissions, promise to meet full need, but year after year have the very small fraction of high need students. See: [Economic</a> Diversity Among the Top 25 Ranked Schools | Rankings | Top National Universities | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/economic-diversity-among-top-ranked-schools]Economic”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/economic-diversity-among-top-ranked-schools)</p>
<p>Don’t public magnet schools w high avg SAT scores, like Stuyvesant & Bronx Science, have a lot of low SES kids? There was a NYT article last year about how these schools are a lifeline to poor immigrant kids in NYC.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that the poorer kids score better (on average) on their SATs as compared to other students in the same schools. The data is very robust --there is a strong linear correlation between family income & test scores. There will be individual variations --outliers at all levels of income – but as a whole, the scores will be reflective of income levels. </p>
<p>In any case, the top schools don’t care on an individual basis whether the student is needy or not. They want to accept a certain number of high-need students; they just don’t want to accept too many. They have $X in their financial aid budget, and their ideal goal is to spend exactly $X on financial aid. Any more than $X means that they have gone over budget; any less than $X means that they are falling short of the goals they set for themselves.</p>
<p>So it really doesn’t matter if some poor kid with a -0- EFC from Bronx science scores 2350 on SATs and gets admitted – it’s not a problem to their calculations because they only take a small fraction of kids from those public magnets. What matters is that across the board they stay within budget, and SAT levels contribute to that. </p>
<p>What happens is that throughout the admissions cycle they get statistical reports back on how their numbers are running in relation to their goals. There is a very good description of this process in the book, The Gatekeepers, which followed an admissions cycle at Wesleyan. </p>
<p>If a school is need-aware, then the data being reported back might include explicit financial data – for example, the admissions office might ask the financial aid office to review an application and report on its budget before making decisions on some candidates. Or, the admissions office might simply admit who they want but assign some sort of ranking to indicate to the financial aid office which students they like best. If the financial aid office is running short of funds, then towards the end of the admission season, they might send some files back to admission to un-admit a number of students in favor of full payers who would otherwise be waitlisted.</p>
<p>“Need blind” + “100% need” – they can’t do that. What they can do is allow statistical probabilities to work in their favor. They can create admissions programs that tend to favor the wealthy, such as ED; and they can set admission criteria, such as reliance on a certain level of SAT scores, that also similarly skews toward richer students. </p>
<p>They are pretty good at that. You can look and see the same score range of admitted students and roughly the same percentages for financial aid year after year. If the colleges were uniformly looking for high end SATs, then the scores would skew upwards at the most competitive colleges – but it doesn’t. The top schools keep accepting the same number of kids whose scores fall within below median as kids whose scores fall above that, and the tail of raw scores for below-median is longer than the tail for above median. That’s why they report medians rather than averages. (The highest that any student can earn the SAT is 800; but the lowest that Harvard ever admits is 490 - possibly lower, but there’s no way to document anything lower than that because of the way the stats are reported.)</p>
<p>I’m not saying that the SAT scores are used for that sole purpose; I’m just saying that if a top school like Princeton decided to suddenly abandon all test scores from consideration, they’d have to rely on other types of data to influence their admissions. They could probably achieve similar results through monitoring numbers of kids admitted from private vs. public schools, and maybe that is part of their equation. </p>
<p>Obviously it is also in their interest to maintain high test scores because US News uses them in rankings, and it is probably particularly important for the top-5 schools to keep their top-5 placement. It would be interesting to see how the rankings would come out if US News eliminated consideration of test scores from their ranking formula.</p>
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<p>In any event, as I stated, my comment was specifically based upon my observation and inquiry concerning 8 years of my offsprings’ college courses, of which only one course (basic psychology) included some MC questions on the exam. Yes, this is anecdotal, but there was nothing unusual about the courses they selected, so any argument that MC exams are common in college was simply not true in our case.<<<</p>
<p>Pretty funny how you counter the data I linked with a datapoint of ONE. Data is not the plural of anecdote. Equally funny how the discussion veered to debate most versus many and not about the actual percentage presented in the research. </p>
<p>Regardless, anyone with recent experience in college testing will find the thesis that MC are hardly used entirely surprising. I find it one of the most fantastic statements ever made on CC. And the evidence in research indicates that claiming that VIRTUALLY NO college relies on MC to be preposterous.</p>
<p>Regarding the correlation between income and SAT scores, it is undeniable that wealthier students score higher, and this could attributable to a number of factors associated with social class and standing. One should, however, remember that the source of the various studies is none other than the SELF reported numbers on the SAT questionnaire. </p>
<p>Here is a question. If I were to uncover a high correlation between FUTURE income of students at selective schools and their SAT scores, could I declare that the SAT is one of the best predictors of salaries? As a high SAT correlates with a high PROJECTED income? </p>
<p>Wouldn’t critics point out that GPA, majors, social standing, connections, etc, play a role in defining future income? But wouldn’t I still have my quasi perfect correlation to wave them off with a simple …look at the R factor? High SAT means high future income. And high SAT create high income.</p>
<p>If you believe in correlation and causation, that is.</p>
<p>PS Isn’t easier for schools to determine the income of applicants by looking at the FAFSA? Or the tax returns? Or at the box about applying to financial aid?</p>
<p>" What make you think that the colleges are “obsessed” with those scores? The fact that two Yale English majors have high scores doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t have been admitted without them, or that other students in other majors don’t have weaker scores. "</p>
<p>This is considered false evidence. </p>
<p>It is not that one or two may not have lower scores. If the average scores are reaching 2100+, one or two scoring 1500 and being admitted means absolutely nothing from a sample of 2000 admittees. It is very hard to reach high average numbers by admitting many of the “geniuses” being alluded to with 410+410+410 score.</p>
<p>There is a simple reason some kids have high scores. They are good at everything they do and the profiles are attractive to top schools. So when the schools pick students they want, they end up being those with top scores too. So a kid wanting to be an English major may also have an 800 SAT Math score and this kid can choose to study anything he/she wants to but just likes English more.</p>
<p>I suggest xiggi could have been an engineer if he wanted to.</p>
<p>[Yale</a> “Factsheet” | Office of Institutional Research](<a href=“http://oir.yale.edu/yale-factsheet]Yale”>http://oir.yale.edu/yale-factsheet)</p>
<p>Test score ranges (25th to 75th percentiles) for enrolled freshmen:
SAT-Verbal: 700-800
SAT-Math: 710-790
SAT-Writing: 710-800
ACT: 32-35</p>
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That wouldn’t be an anomaly in the sense of something going wrong on that one test day, like having the flu, or messing up the answer sheet. I guess it’s possible that somebody capable of a much higher score wouldn’t retake for economic or other reasons–it just seems kind of farfetched to me. I mean, that’s an awfully low score for somebody who’s getting good grades in math.</p>
<p>xiggi,
I would happily defer to your authority about MC testing in college, if you were to actually provide data on the subject. You rely only on one author’s claims, which do not appear to be based upon any reliable data whatsoever. In fact, you even changed the wording of the actual quote to support your position. The authors state that “many” (not most) “appear to” (not do) prefer MC testing, and this is supported by “estimates” by “investigators” (not measured data) for economics courses only (not all courses), and even those “estimates” may be as low as 45%.</p>
<p>Show me actual evidence that MC tests are commonly used at top colleges, and I will concede the point.</p>
<p>Here is a similarly unreliable source (ie. no data) that supports my position:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href="http://www./resources/study-skills/study-smart/what-to-expect-on-a-college-exam/%5B/url%5D">http://www./resources/study-skills/study-smart/what-to-expect-on-a-college-exam/</a></p>