<p>tokenadult and jsmall-
Extracurriculars are certainly part of an applicant’s overall profile. The application process should look at students wholistically. I do not dispute that.</p>
<p>But the SATs are an important component of that process. They are an objective measure that others can understand and use to evaluate colleges. There is no objective EC index to use when judging the quality of students at a school.</p>
<p>Furthermore, ECs usually do not relate to academic ability and are not helpful in assessing the academic strength of a school or an applicant whereas the SATs measure academic ability.</p>
<p>What role do you see test-prep as playing in all of this? Certainly an industry that’s boomed since 1968 (since 1998, for that matter).</p>
<p>I’d vote for decreasing test prep and decreasing the normality of multiple sittings before I’d vote for making the test more difficult. Either option is unfair, but they’d accomplish similar goals, and IMO, the former is truer to the ‘purpose’ of the SAT.</p>
<p>I think the SAT needs only a minor adjustment at this point. Add 1-15 questions at the highest difficulty level and subtract 10-15 questions at the lowest level, math and CR.</p>
<p>I think multiple sittings and test prep is actually closer to the true “purpose” of the SAT because it decreases the influence of test taking strategies and familiarity and leaves knowledge and problem-solving skill as the primary influence on the score. The SATs are not trying to measure test familarity. It is the unprepared test-taker that harms the SAT score validity.</p>
<p>rogracer-
By the way, if the assumption of normality is met, the 25th and 75th percentile data points will lead to an exactly precise calculation of students scoring over 1560.</p>
If the SATs were made harder, it wouldn’t make college admissions harder at all. The test is standardized meaning that your score relative to everyone else’s would be the same even though everyone as a whole may have gotten more questions wrong. </p>
<p>The thing that makes college admissions easy or hard in a given year is how many people are applying.</p>
<p>I now believe --more than ever-- that TCB/ETS should change the entire system. starting by abandoning their AP testing methods and ONLY offer them in the same way the SAT is currently offered. The current waste of one or two weeks for the AP boondoggle is non-sensical. Students interested in the AP should spent their Saturday. On the other hand, it would make perfect sense to expand the SAT by merging the SAT and SAT Subject Tests in the manner I described above. In fact, the requirements to have a Super SAT comprising 6 sections might offer a simple answer to CH demand for a tougher test. The Super SAT with 4800 points should give plenty of opportunities to separate students at both ends of the range, and still be mormalized at the 500 level.</p>