But are those kids be accepted to UCs? I mean, yes, it’s awful how the school system is failing students, such as in the case of students graduating high school without basic literacy skills. But where is the evidence that such students are being accepted at top colleges? And matriculating to top colleges? Or any colleges at all?
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For Caltech, an 800 on SAT math would not by itself be sufficient to indicate readiness to handle the minimum required math at Caltech (Ma 1a is closer to real analysis than it is to calculus at most colleges (including MIT)). A significantly lower than 800 may be useful to screen out unsuitable applicants at Caltech, but Caltech presumably has to look at additional academic indicators among those with 800 scores to ensure that they will be capable of doing the work.
MIT 18.01 is like regular calculus in college, except that it is accelerated to cover what is typically a year of calculus in one semester. Hence, it can be argued that the minimum math skill threshold to do the work at MIT is higher than for most other colleges / majors where calculus and higher math are required, although not to the level of Caltech.
For most other colleges, for math-heavy majors, SAT math scores may be more of an indicator of likelihood of the applicant being able to do the work (for example, UT Austin engineering lists 620 SAT math as indicating readiness for calculus). However, for the most selective colleges, applicants with realistic chance of admission generally probably have SAT math scores compressed at the top near 800 anyway. Substantially lower scores may be more of a convenient way of screen out some applicants.
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I think SAT math is ridiculously easy. But if you make one mistake (overlook something, or simply misbubble), it can cost you dearly (20 points I think). I can’t imagine a kid scoring below 700 (or 750) is ready for engineering.
Luckily at large schools you have several levels of these courses. Caltech is tiny and solely STEM focused, so they probably expect everybody to be on the same page. Top UCs run several tracks - Calculus for engineers, Calc for bio (or as my kids say math for kids who don’t want to do math), and Calc for math majors (honors one that is more in line with the way Caltech would teach). Same in physics. So at a large place you can find your place based on your ambition and ability. But at a place like Caltech, if you can’t keep up, no alternatives are there to catch you.
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I didn’t actually suggest that kids who couldn’t read are being let into the UC system. However, there are schools where half the kids or more can’t read and I imagine the students at the top of those schools do achieve straight A’s but are those students actually prepared for college level work? Possible but how would one know? Some measure beyond just how well does a student does compared to their peers seems necessary. It doesn’t have to be SAT scores but something with which it shows that a student has this basic knowledge going into college. Take for example sports. Just because a student is the best player in their high school does not mean that that player will be recruited to play for college even though in their local context they are the best player. Note that even if the student is accepted, a score can show some deficiencies in education background that might be able to be addressed if the college is aware by adding tutoring services etc much as U Texas does as mentioned above.
Also note there are flaws with comparing students with their peers. How does one rank students to even be eligible for the UC system when some schools have close to 20% straight A students, especially when some schools don’t even use weighted GPAs for determining the class rank? Again UC’s might have their own way of judging students who attend CA schools by ranking coursework and they are familar with every school in the state so I expect it’s easier for them to judge if a student is prepared but this is a general point not specific to the UCs.
UT Austin engineering lists 620 as the SAT math threshold for calculus readiness:
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Eligibility for the UC system is determined by completion of the specified a-g subject requirements with a 3.0 HS GPA in them (as recalculated by the UC method with limited weighting).
Assured admission to the UC system (not necessarily to the campus of one’s choice) is based on meeting a top 9% threshold HS GPA that UC has recalculated from the high school from a recent previous class (current class rank determined by the high school is not used).
It is not actually that hard to get into a UC, if you are willing to go to UCM, UCR, and UCSC. But California’s huge population relative to the size of the UC campuses makes the most desired ones highly selective, to the point where compression at the top in HS GPA (and SAT and ACT scores before COVID-19) meant that these basic academic indicators did not provide sufficient differentiation between applicants at the most desired UC campuses.
Note that even before COVID-19, UC emphasized HS GPA over SAT and ACT scores, based on Geiser’s studies indicating that HS GPA was a stronger predictor of college performance. However, compression at the top due to HS grade inflation since the Geiser studies (in the 1990s and 2000s) has probably significantly reduced the predictive value of HS GPA at the most desired UC campuses.
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I don’t think Caltech would actually require an 800 since they didn’t even look at SAT scores after covid until last year when they went back to requiring them plus some people make careless errors so I doubt they’ll exclude a promising student who scored a 780. I suggested 700 for MIT/Caletch because that seems to be the baseline for MIT based on what one person from admissions (MITChris) said. Caltech may prefer to draw the line somewhere higher.
Note I am not suggesting that this is enough indication that a student can handle the work at these schools but that it’s basically a necessary though insufficient metric. Schools may need to look at other factors beyond this. My point about SATs is that they should be treated as a bar for which students that are entering some majors/schools need to meet. For MIT it may be an SAT math score of 700. For Caltech, it might be higher. For Berkeley engineering it may well be 650 while for U Texas, it might be 620. For a Berkeley history student the math score to fulfill gen-ed requirements could be a 500 and for Riverside there might be no SAT math threshold for a history major but a 500 on reading and a 500 math score for engineering majors. Students would not be picked based on their SAT score but rather filtered out if they do not meet the minimum needed for their major/school because it could indicate that they are not prepared for the work in their major or at the school and would be better served attending community college to gain that education preparation that they need for university level work.
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If you believe https://arxiv.org/pdf/1011.0663 , a study of math and physics grades at University of Oregon relative to SAT math scores, it suggests that the probability of earning a 3.5 college GPA in math and physics was very low below 600 SAT math, but increasing from 600 to 800 SAT math.
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I am more surprised it is 600 and not 700.
I mean my 7th grader got an 800 on SAT math and he is no genius. I can’t imagine a 12th grader struggling on this exam (and 600 implies a lot of missed problems) succeeding in physics/math degree. Thanks for linking that study. Very interesting.
But I am also not surprised that history majors have no need for SAT math. 
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Interesting paper. Thanks! Seems like the SAT math score and only the SAT math score correlates to grades in math-heavy subjects as they mentioned physics and math but I expect it might also be true for engineering, computer science etc but not positive on that. It is only one study but we have seen other studies that correlate retention in engineering with SAT scores so it seems the SAT math score is actually a useful metric to make sure that a student has the right background to undertake these fields. It does not seem based on this one paper that the SAT-R section is useful for this purpose. I don’t think most majors such as humanities but even science majors such as bio seem to have this kind of correlation with SAT scores so for most students, they probably wouldn’t need to take an SAT. For a math heavy field, it is possible a certain threshold should be used. For University of Oregon’s math and physics programs, it might be a threshold of 550 or maybe lower as not everyone needs a GPA above 3.5. For other schools and other programs it might be higher or lower. I think it should be specific to a given school/program.
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It seems a good time to remind everyone that the vast majority of colleges are test blind or test optional, and that’s not going to change anytime soon.
Many enrollment management people, as well as senior college leaders and trustees, are comfortable with being test blind or test optional, for any number of reasons.
Some colleges have published data that show little difference in GPA, grad rates, etc. between test submitters and those who didn’t submit tests. Some schools went test optional based on those data.
I continue to wonder why some think they know better than the leaders of a given college (whether the college is test required, test optional, or test blind.)
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For most of the more selective colleges (the ones usually talked about in these forums), the “can do the work” threshold is probably irrelevant, since the threshold to be competitive for admission (without the larger hooks) is likely significantly higher than the “can do the work” threshold. Where “can do the work” thresholds (whether based on test scores, HS GPA, or other academic indicators) can matter is in the consideration of major hook applicants with substantially worse academic indicators than the typical admits.
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Probably but quite a few of these selective colleges went back to requiring some test measurement whether it was SAT, AP or some external measure. Maybe it is to pick out those who don’t have any other indication that they are diamonds in the rough since they don’t have expensive ec’s or advanced courses offered in their school etc.
Leaders of a college are not in the classroom so are quite removed and often make decisions based not on what is best for the students but what is best for the school. Sometimes that is based on politics, sometimes it is based on trying to increase their ranking in US News or various other interests. There have been faculty who have complained and some who think testing is not needed. What would be interesting is to see which departments the faculty are part of that want testing reinstated vs. those that don’t. However, I don’t think leaders of a college are necessarily best positioned to know the classroom experience and the effect testing may or may not have on class performance and many don’t seek or desire input from faculty if it contradicts what they deem to be best for the school.
I think it odd that some schools have gone back to requiring SAT tests if the SAT tests are completely superfluous and hard for some students to access. Seems like many of the STEM focused schools - not all but many - were the first to reinstate them. That along with papers like the one @ucbalumnus linked to that demonstrate there is a correlation between SAT math score and college GPA for math and physics majors suggest they may actually be useful for some schools and/or for some majors. The issue I find is that all of these colleges seem to have an all or nothing approach. The data suggests that this isn’t the case as the SAT score does not correlate well for students outside math-heavy subjects or at least that’s the implication from the above paper. What would be good would be to actually study the matter in depth which does not seem to have been done much to date - certainly these college administrators do not seem to have broken out SAT scores and subscores by intended major for instance to see if students are not dropping out of college but switching majors. Why would they? It wouldn’t help the school to do so.
Probably the larger (and intended) effect is to allow quickly rejecting uncompetitive applicants who may be applying in huge numbers now.
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Just one example, at Penn State after cohort review and faculty recommendation, they’re still test optional but if you’re applying for a major that requires math, Admissions really prefers that either you have some proof of math competency through precalc or a standardized test score.
In addition, relatively new this year, they have 2 summer “prides” (“little lion” cohorts of 22-24, who take 2 classes together) with calculus and several sections of a sort of “calculus onboarding” course for students whose major requires Calculus and whose Aleks score indicates they would be better off reviewing some concepts. (Students whose Aleks score indicates they need to take more than a review but actual precalculus have to take a class in the Fall.)
I’m guessing they find a low or medium (sub 500? Sub 600?) SAT math score a good enough indication alongside ALEKS for students who want to major in Engineering, Earth&Mineral Sciences, IST, or Science. OTOH it seems they couldn’t care less about the SAT math score for other majors.
Note that the highly selective universities in the title tend to have a provision whereby if tests are difficult to access, you/your GC need to email Admissions (ie., distance, no available test center, etc.) to get the test waived.
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Ask any professor you know-- literature, history, political science, art history, Renaissance Studies- if there is a correlation between SAT verbal scores and course performance. Many of them have taught in a variety of educational settings.
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This was based off the paper that @ucbalumnus shared. It states the following:
"We find evidence of a nonlinear threshold: below SAT-M score of roughly 600, the probability of success is very low. Interestingly, no similar threshold exists in other majors, such as Sociology, History, English or Biology, whether on SAT
combined, SAT-R or SAT-M.
Despite the somewhat higher correlations, we discovered impressive cases of high achievement by students with relatively low SAT scores: in almost all majors (e.g., English, History, Sociology, Biology, etc.) students with combined (math + reading) scores well below 1000 (i.e., below the average among all SAT takers) achieved in-major, upper division GPAs (henceforth, upper GPAs) in excess of 3.5 and even 4.
…
However, two majors stood out as qualitatively different from the others. In the cases of Physics and of pure Mathematics (defined by a set of rigorous courses taken by graduate school bound majors), the pattern of upper GPA versus SAT-M showed a sharp threshold: no student below approximately SAT-M =600 was able to attain the 3.5 upper GPA (i.e., roughly equal numbers of A and B grades) typically required for admission to a Ph.D. program."
It’s one study only though and other studies may show different results.
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Actually, 1 mistake will still yield an 800 in many cases. But yes, at the top silly mistakes cost you. The same person can easily to get anywhere between 750 to 800 on a given day.
The SAT does not, nor its meant to, cover advanced math. Doing well in 7th grade vs 12th grade has nothing to do with being a genius. Our standard curriculum covers Algebra 1 in 7th grade and plenty of kids accelerated that, but in much of the country Algebra 2 is not covered until 10th even 11th grade. The SAT is a test of foundation. It’s easy to get a high score if you were taught the foundational pieces well. Colleges care because they know if a kids tested well the building blocks or there. Not “oh he must be so smart.” I have a ‘25. She has a ridiculously large number of friends who struggled with the SAT because, as it turns out, COVID left some pretty big gaps in their foundational knowledge.
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That’s my point. It is an easy test that measure fairly basic math skills. I don’t understand why anybody would oppose measuring foundational skills for college entry. We seem to have layered tests in CA on high schoolers (can’t remember what they are called but taken with certain frequency) that we insist our kids take so we can measure their learning, but SAT is demonized.
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Yes, I’ve gathered that from your posts. I might suggest you listen to some of the many higher ed leaders who feel differently than you do, if you have the time and interest to build on your knowledge base.
These tests can have some of the same issues that the SAT/ACT do, which is one reason why the UCs haven’t yet gone to using the CAASPP results in college admissions for example (UC Academic Senate felt the CAASPP has many of the same issues as the SAT/ACT, as noted in one of their reports.)
I’m not sure any state colleges use any of the various state tests for admissions purposes. FL and AR public colleges do allow the CLT in lieu of SAT/ACT in admissions.
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