SAT detractors like to point out the correlation between X (wealth) and Y (SAT score), sometimes framing the correlation as X causing Y. While there is no doubt X does contribute towards Y, there may be another factor at play, Z (intelligence), that is at least weakly affecting both X and Y. But nobody wants to talk about Z because it is such a taboo subject. So the conversation proceeds in the way it does.
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Yes. So why waste the resources, except to enrich the College Board?
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The question in my mind is whether it would improve equal access for all of our students to all of the great opportunities both in-state (for private institutions which use SAT in admissions) and out of state.
I donāt see it as a waste of resources, if it would benefit students. The questions would be: how much it would benefit students, and how much it would cost. I do not know the answer to either of those, but I donāt think it is obvious that there is no benefit or that the cost would be too great.
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You are 100% correct but this is not the forum for a successful conversation on this topic.
This is true. The perceived evil & unfairness of the SAT is instantly marginalized by the fact that it doesnāt stop anyone from attending college.
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Test Optional policies donāt stop anyone from attending college either. Yet we have an uproar that some colleges dare choose to open up access to more potentially great students by making admissions Test Optional.
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What I find ironic is that most posters clearly use average SAT scores of students to identify ātopā high school, colleges, or even entire state public systems of education ( Mass is better than Mississippi?) But then deny their relevance for admission purposes. How exactly do we know Mass has better education than Mississippi other than scores?
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Literacy rate, graduation rate, % who attend/graduate from college, various relative NCES measures, etc. The SAT isnāt some magical talisman that tells us everything we need to know about education and ability.
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That is not why there is an uproar. A college education is a significant financial endeavor for most. With all of that money involved, people want 3 things:
- Transparency
- Consistency
- Fairness
I have yet to see any path to achieving those 3 things without standardized tests.
Now, the SAT itself, and elements surrounding it, are not completely fair right now. We may never make it 100% fair across the board, but we can certainly make things better. I support those efforts.
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And I have yet to see any path to these three using standardized tests.
But then I donāt agree that these should be the driving factors, nor do I define āfairnessā as an insistence that my preferred factors are considered. In fact I donāt think āfairnessā (in the way used here) is the goal at all.
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I have a hard time believing that. Surely you acknowledge the difficulties in trying to compare grades across different schools, districts and states. If there were a completely fair standardized test with equal preparation resources for all, this would be ideal. Right?
As I have said before, let private universities do what they want. For public universities (who exist because of taxpayer money and tuition payments from taxpayers), if fairness, consistency and transparency are not their goals, then their leaders need to be fired and replaced with ethical people.
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This mischaracterizes how admissions works. Grades, rigor, awards, etc. are compared in the context of an individual applicantās high school and/or similar high schools.
And the the extent that comparing such things are difficult. it is just as difficult with test scores, only test scores come with the illusion of objectivity and standardization. A kid with a 1460 from a fantastic school may be a mediocre student compared to a kid with a 1270 from a horrible school, but try to tell that to the parent of the kid with the 1460.
Not interested in visiting fantasyland. āEqual preparation resources for allā is not an option because āprepā goes well beyond the opportunity and wherewithal to prepare for the test. It is upbringing, schools, teachers, peers, stability, etc.
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I think this is an interesting question. Why the huge jump from 1% to .1%? I think the answer is fairly simple, but perhaps telling to the larger issue.
We are talking about the percentage of students who excel on the SAT. People in the top 0.1% are extremely likely have access to and take advantage of every academic advantage available, whether it be the very ābestā schools, private tutoring, etc. While some in the top 1% have access to some of these things, it is a lower percentage of 1%ers who can and do take advantage of these things. Top 1%ers may want to send their kids to these schools, but they face hurdles that the top 0.1% doesnāt face. Like getting accepted. Or living in the right neighborhood. Being in the top 1% means better access than everyone else, but it pales in comparison to the access of the top 0.1%.
Say for example that there is a school where the average SAT score is around 1500 and the vast majority of kids have traditionally matriculated to top schools, Thatās where those in the top 0.1% are sending their children. Only it starts in pre-school.
Kids with every academic and lifestyle advantage have a much, much higher potential to score better. And those in the top 0.1% are better positioned to take advance of this than even those in the top 1%. And those in the top 1% are much better positioned that those in the top 10% And on down the line.
This correlation between potential for high scores and resources tells us something profound about the SAT.
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Is it ethical for a public school to require tests when such a low proportion of low income students take a test? (in the states where that is the caseā¦which must be many, as the national proportion is in the 20%-25% range.)
Note also that around 50% of high school students qualify for need based federal program free/reduced lunch.
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This is from an an old interview with Claude Steele on Frontline. Points are still relevant.
"What do you think of the SAT, personally?
I think it is an exam that can tell you something. Iāve used a metaphor if you can indulge that, that I think captures the basic argument I would use. If you had to select a basketball team by the number of 10 free throws that a player could hit, the first thing youād worry about is selecting a basketball player based on how they shoot free throws and you know youād never pick Shaquille OāNeal because heās terrible at free throws even though heās a magnificent basketball player. Thatās what a standardized test is, compared to the domain of real school performance. Real school performance out thereāitās like having to select a basketball player based on how well they shoot free throws. Thatās the first problem with standardized tests.
And the SAT reflects that. The predictive statistics reflect that. The SAT measures only about 18%, [an] estimate range from 7 to 25%, but of the things that it takes to do well in school. This is something that people should realize about the test. People think of it as capturing a very large proportion of things that are important to school success. The people that make these tests tell us, āNo, that is not true. They donāt capture a large portion of the thingsāabout 18%.ā In many of the samples Iāve done research on, much smaller than that, sometimes 4% of the things that are predicting success in college for example. So itās not great, just like a free throw is to selecting a basketball team. And SAT is not going to get you very far with predicting whoās going to do well in college. And certainly not far with regards to who is going to do well in society or contribute to society. Itās just not that good a tool and thatās the first thing to realize about it.
The second set of problems have to do with interpreting the scores on SAT tests. And again, the free throw example is useful. If a kid comes in and he shoots 10 out of 10 or zero out of 10, you might take note of that kind of performance with regard to selecting him on the basketball team. If he hits 10 out of 10, you say, āWell, okay, heās probably pretty good and that probably reflects something about his basketball playing. Iāll put him on the team. Zero out of 10, that probably reflects something about his playing, heās off the team.ā Same with SAT tests I think. When you get really strong scores one way or the other, even though theyāre not as reliable, they often can bring to light talent that would not otherwise be seen.
And so I am not one who thinks they should be done away with entirely. They can be useful in that regard as long as we understand how to interpret them and how little to use them. And I think many college admissions committees are very sophisticated about this. They are closer to this issue of how predictive tests are, and they can get a feel for it. So, thatās the second thing.
Middling scores on the test are very difficult to interpret because you donāt know. If the kid practiced a little bit more, maybe he would have hit 9 free throws. Maybe he hit only 4 and heās been practicing for 10 years. Itās just hard to interpret the meaning of middling scores and the same is true with the SAT. A kid who gets anywhere from 10 to 1200, maybe he got those scores because of coaching or maybe he got those scores because he didnāt have enough coaching or maybe he got those scores because he went to Europe every summer and got a great vocabulary about cathedrals and that happened to be on the test that day. All kinds of things can contribute to performance and it muddies up the diagnosticity of the test. "
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A sweet tale. Let me share one too. From 2017, when my oldest graduated high school, to 2020, with the youngest, our private school deliberately undertook a process to inflate every studentās grades dramatically, to allow them to better compete against students from those schools with inflated grades ( but overall lower scores and less prep). SAT scores didnāt move-the students were no better prepared than before. But now everyone has high grades and there are fewer means to distinguish among them than before. So everyone is both happier and less happy, oddly. It doesnāt impact me, but the law of unintended consequences holds
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Duplicate
One of my sons went to high school in Quebec and then the US. In Quebec, there is no grade inflation. A 90+ average ranks you in the top 5-7% of your class. In his grade 12 year in the U.S about 15% of the kids had GPAās over 3.90 in Grade 12. Total nonsense.
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I explored this line of thinking and didnāt conclude what you did partly because of the fact that the 1% is apparently ~800k/yr in California. This makes all that schooling readily available in terms of finances. Admission is a different story as the 0.1% would probably find admission easier. But sibling admission preferences do dull this advantage a bit (e.g. your distracted younger brother will get in even without the grades you earnedā¦ so amongst that 0.1% and 1% cohort, Iād wager that while the ease of getting in is different, itās not noticeably soā¦ and with these kinds of income levels, starting at elementary school is doable)
The other caveat here is that a lot of solid public schools produce some really superb scores in large numbersā¦ so is there a quantifiable gain in scores from attending Woodside Priory vs Gunn?
Anyway, I think what you outline is the standard hypothesis, and it would need more solid details to see if it holds up in reality.
If I gambled Iād take that wager. Some of the private high schools in California have single digit acceptance rates, and almost all who apply can afford them. Those in the top 0.1 face significantly better odds in this regard. And the differences are amplified because the process starts in preschool. People in the top 0.1% can afford individualized daily tutoring for their kids, and more importantly, this sort of attention is commonplace among that set, at east among those who value education.
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Another factor is that the top 1% is 10x the top .1%, so we are dealing with a much smaller sample size. Further, among the top .1%, a lot of the kids presumably either can get in through a donor hook or donāt feel/donāt need to get into a highly selective college (or any college at all) where a high test score is a must so they donāt even test. So among the top .1% kids, there may be a disproportionate number who are already confident in achieving high test scores. For the top 1%, there may be greater participation and therefore greater dispersion of scores. It would be interesting to see what percentage of .1% kids test vs 1%.
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