This cannot be repeated enough. I said something similar earlier and this was @Data10’s response:
When I asked @pilate whether students with poorer SAT/ACT scores are more likely than those who score better to graduate as non-STEM majors when both groups started out as STEM majors, this was the response:
I believe when there is a will, there is a way. I’m not sure if schools have the will to collect the data and take an honest look at them, though. Reminds me of the NFL wanting to sweep CTE brain injuries under the rug because it’s bad for business – in a school’s case, bad for its agenda.
In terms of the assumption that it is poor test takers who are against requiring tests: I did just fine on the SAT. Got into my first choice college (although it was not a highly selective one.) I did just fine on the GRE, too - good enough to get into a highly competitive MA program at Georgetown. When it came time to apply to PhD programs, my GRE scores had expired. To use a new phrase I learned on this thread, I believed the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze to take the test again - a test which I thoroughly believe had zero correlation with my success in a graduate program as absolutely nothing on that test was aligned with anything I studied. I could have done better, I could have done worse, and my academic outcome would have been exactly the same.
Anyway, I categorically refused to take it again for my PhD program applications - I considered it useless stress. This despite the fact that I had clearly done well enough on it to get into a highly selective university. And, in fact, I did not take it again. I found exactly two PhD programs in my discipline willing to exempt me from the GRE requirement, one of which I ended up attending. I literally went there in large part because they exempted me from the GRE. And that program was at UC Berkeley So I guess the UCs were always a bit more flexible on testing.
But, my point is, no - I did fine of the tests. But I would never take one again, nor did my daughter ever take any standardized tests - no SAT, no ACT, no AP exams, not even the “mandatory” state testing - we opted out of that, too. To me, it is still all useless stress. So surely she must be one of those students clearly not up to competitive academics? Well, for her first semester at UC Berkeley she ended with a 3.9 GPA (one A, one A-, two A+s; the A- was in a physics class). She, too, is doing just fine without standardized testing. What exactly would an SAT score have added to her application? Nothing. Her application stood on its other merits and, given her first semester GPA, the AOs must not have been too wrong in assessing as fit for study, even without a single standardized test score.
You may not worry if your electrician/surgeon have passed a test, but that’s because they did. You only have confidence in these professionals because they have already been vetted.
Why is it or was it stressful if you did fine on it? Your kid may have done well too, with no stress. Why did you make it stressful? Pretty much the entire world outside the US manages to use such a test; world norms are useful.
I also don’t think the SAT has much value, but if schools want to use it that is fine. Of course when people say “not much value,” defenders of standardized tests seem to hear “no value at all,” which I also don’t believe. I am sure standardized tests are somewhat useful and make reading applications faster. I just don’t think they are necessary in most cases. But my feelings about the juice not being worth the squeeze for most colleges has less to do with their negative impact on students with low scores than the negative impact on students with high scores. I didn’t read all the linked articles, but the one that made me laugh out loud was the post where Jon Boeckenstedt wrote:
I still think “being full of yourself” is gross, for lack of a better word. But there does seem to be a peculiar subset of people who tout their ability to take a standardized test 20 or 30 or 40 years ago as a point of pride; and that thing–that narrow little skill–seems to be for them a defining characteristic. That skill also, frankly, seems to occasionally crowd out other life skills that one might aspire to…
I’ve scored in the 95th percentile or above on literally every standardized test I’ve ever taken, including the ACT (I never took the SAT, and growing up in Iowa, I don’t know if I’d ever even heard of it). I only say this because being a good scorer had apparently the opposite effect on me: It made me wonder why people who I thought were smarter than I was didn’t score as well. People who had a year more of math than I did scored lower on the math section of the test, and people who smoked me in chemistry scored lower on the science section: How could that happen? Even though I admit there were times I was proud of the score, and even pulled it out a few times in arguments when the beers were flowing, it never really seemed to be substantive to me.
I laughed because that the above beautifully reflects my experience. Many adults that I know who tout their SAT scores as proof of their own intelligence remind me of people who 10, 20, 30 + years after the fact, keep dropping the name of their alma mater (Harvard) in casual conversation. It always hits me as a form of arrogance, self-importance, and self-aggrandizement. As Jon put it, it feels gross. Even more so, the scores just seem so irrelevant to most issues that are actually important to me.
Yet, I am not above it. I will take his statement one step further, I am pretty sure that I have never scored below a 99th percentile overall on a standardized test. Whoopee. I have been there --in a place where I want to brag about my scores or my children’s, and I think it is an ugly place to be. The biggest turn off for me about certain elite institutions is that you can find a lot of people in them who have too high of an opinion of themselves as if somehow being born on 3rd base = hitting a home run.
Because similar to that blogger, I’ve had plenty of instances in my life where I have interacted with people who are much smarter than I am (both in and out of the classroom) and yet they don’t seem to have that fancy trick that I have of doing crazy well on standardized tests. I suspect that I do well on them mostly because I actually enjoy those tests. I like the adrenaline rush taking them gives, and I don’t find that sort of test stressful. There are plenty of other timed activities that I find stressful to the point of paralysis, but not filling out bubbles with a number 2 pencil. Again, whoopee. I happen to like puzzles and solving things quickly. And gosh, those old SATs with the analogies --fun, fun, fun! The GREs with the logic puzzles (does that test still have them?), even more fun! If I took being able to score highly on those tests as proof of my brilliance then I would be sadly mistaken. If I took them as proof of me being smarter or more deserving of a certain type of elite education than absolutely everyone who happened to score in the 90th or 85th or 75th percentile, it would likely be because of willful blindness on my part and an inability to notice or appreciate the intelligence of people with lower scores. Or perhaps it would merely be a sign that I had lived in such a bubble that all of my substantive relationships were with people similar to me who scored similarly. I just can’t take the tests too seriously because know too many smart people who did not score highly including family, friends, classmates, and students.
Of course some people are more intelligent than others, and I would never say that the tests measure nothing at all. I just think that the tests give high scorers an over-inflated sense of their own importance. It leads to Bruni and others implying that students with high SAT scores are the most likely to make good use of an “elite” education. Or they are the most likely to solve the world’s dilemmas and contribute to a better society. Do we care what Martin Luther King’s SAT scores were or Greta Thunberg’s or Toni Morrison’s or Bryan Stevenson’s or Steven Spielberg’s? Maybe some of them has off the charts scores; maybe some did not, but my guess is that the strength of their work and their contributions to society did not stem from scoring an 800 on the quantitive subsection of the SAT.
So I have rather hypocritically pulled out my standardized test scores in this post as some proof of why standardized tests don’t matter. I realize my hypocrisy of course, but to be honest, the times that I am most tempted to talk about my scores (and my educational pedigree) is when I hear and read the (very) thinly veiled racism and defense of eugenicists that gets spouted over and over again by people who are blind to the brilliance and lived experiences of people unlike themselves. So offensive and so not self-aware. Sure, the SATs measure something but the "juice’ of making the admissions process a little easier on AOs is not worth the way that test (and the college board profiting from it) warps the egos of test-takers and turns otherwise sensible people into caricatures of elitist snobs.
Very well said. I think schools setting the bar too high on SAT’s miss the boat on so many students who would do wonders for the reputation of the school. Test-taking is indeed a skill that some have and others don’t.
How can you know what makes me confident in someone’s professional skills?
Like many people, I find that kind of testing environment - along with the time limit, along with the scowling proctors, although with the importance that so many people attach to it, along with the cost, too - to be stressful. And it is stress that has no value to me. The outcome does not negate the experience. The experience is stressful even if the outcome is good.
To me it’s just sad. Like, wow, you peaked in high school. I’m sorry.
I love logic puzzles. I actually got a near perfect score on that section of the GRE (it was my highest scoring section). But I found the circumstances - a large stuffy room with artificial lighting and dozens of sweaty, stressed out students all around me, a proctor looking over my shoulder, a clock ticking - to make it a downright miserable experience.
Or it could of course be the inverse. Most of the entire world finds such tests not only useful but necessary in determining admissions, but we think that American AOs are so super exceptional that they don’t need a criteria everyone else uses
My full response was as follows. And I stand by that response
“It’s not that simple. One of the few things that studies on both sides of the debate agree on, is that SAT alone only explains a small minority of variance in outcome, including outcome for a particular class. For example, the previously noted UC task force study found that math SAT explained 7.4% of within course GPA in engineering classes. That 7.4% was statistically significant, but there is a much larger 92.6% of variation in engineering class grades that was not explained by math SAT. it doesn’t suggest anything resembling the strong relationship you describe
…
At all of the 9 individual UC colleges (UCSF not included), SAT only explained a minority of variation in grades. In all course subjects, SAT only explained a minority of variance in grades. In all major groupings, income levels, races, income levels, HS types, … SAT also only explained a minority of variation in outcome. All studies I am aware of came to similar conclusions about SAT only explaining a minority of variance in outcome, regardless of whether they were done at more or less selective colleges. I am not aware of any review finding the relationship you describe where 650 math SAT means you are good, and 550 means you will struggle. It’s not that simple. Many factors influence college success beyond math SAT score.”
Let’s look at a different way. Are kids who are admitted test optional as a whole struggling?
This isn’t the same as asking what do you think would happen if your average 450 math SAT kid was put in an MIT or Caltech math class? That isn’t likely to happen under a test optional system, as I’d expect the average 450 math SAT kid could would be flagged in many other parts of the application. Instead the kids MIT or Caltech would admit under a test optional system excel in many areas of their application besides just their math SAT score.
For example, prior to COVID, some colleges requested that test optional kids report scores in the summer prior to attending for statistical purposes. This allows us to review the score distribution of students who are admitted test optional. An example is Bowdoin. Their 2019 CDS shows the following distribution (59% reported SAT / 45% reported ACT). Under a test optional system, nobody is reported as scored under 500 on either section of SAT, and the overwhelming majority scored 600+.
Bowdoin in 2019 (nearly all test optional kids are included)
63% scored 700+ Math, 58% scored 700+ EBRW
92% scored 600+ Math, 96% scored 600+ EBRW
100% scored 500+ Math, 100% scored 500+ EBRW
I’m in the same boat, and like with you it feels gross to even hint at it, much less dwell on it. Quite frankly I feel like I need to take a shower for even acknowledging this much. But it is gross not just on a personal level, but also on a societal level. There is a certain segment of society that has elevated the importance of these silly tests well beyond what the statistics justify. And oftentimes behind it, lurking in the shadows, is some pretty nasty stuff. And that itself has a steep cost.
Which are the other countries require the SAT for college admission?
Or they have simply been trained to do things differently in accordance with the educational system in which they work. Sometimes different is just different and not an indication of superiority/inferiority. If you want to argue that one system is, in fact, superior to the other, you certainly could, but I imagine that would be a separate thread?
Most of the world require tests many times harder than the SAT math for admission. Iran, India, China, UK, to name a few major ones. National-level, standardized, multiple subjects, multiple days in duration, and very difficult. Make SAT look like a cakewalk.
Anecdotally, I know a guy whose HS SAT score was a total of 900 (math+verbal). He had a lot of bumps in the road, but he eventually graduated from SJSU with a degree in electrical engineering. He went to community college first, failed multiple classes more than once, was a ward of the state as a minor and lived in a group home basically doing an independent-study type of high school. Had pretty much nobody to guide him through any of it, had to figure it all out on his own (including how to study). Precalculus in HS? Didn’t happen for him. Multiple people told him to quit and do something easier. Multiple people told him he wasn’t smart enough for it, didn’t have the aptitude for it. He basically thought, “Screw you. I’ll show you. I’m gonna go do it anyway.”
Your ATTITUDE, not your APTITUDE, will determine your altitude.
I do feel as if I need a shower after my little rant. Obviously, I was intemperate in my last post, and not as polite as I usually try to be. I am slightly sorry. But every once in a while, I just read one too many posts in which someone claims “certain” types of people not scoring well on the SAT is the only reason why some places have gone TO. Eventually someone else brings up the SAT as a measure of intelligence. Apparently, readers are supposed to connect the dots, but not acknowledge or call out the deliberate implication that the variance of SAT scores is a sign that some groups of people are more intelligent than other groups of people. Mostly, I ignore this stuff and bite my tongue since I know that I am not going to change anyone’s mind on their strongly held beliefs about the issue, but once in a while I burst.
I am wondering if we can bring the thread back to what we have learned so far, and build up on that:
Colleges that have found testing to be useful include for predicting student performance include the following:
Extremely selective private: MIT, Yale, and Brown
Highly selective public: The University of California
Moderately selective public: The university where @pilate works
Among those listed above, only the University of California found that that testing helps predict likelihood of graduation. The others did not.
There are also many colleges (including LACs like Bates, Bowdoin and Clark) that have found that standardized tests do not predict student performance at those colleges.
I applaud the University of California for describing the process by which they came to their conclusion, and I wish others did the same.
But for now, let’s assume that everyone did the analysis correctly. Why would the answers be different?
To start, are you still asserting that these tests “are an excellent predictor of college performance?” Because, as Vignor demonstrated (in a critique you acknowledged was mathematically sound) the statistics do not back up your assertion.
There are many factors, but I’d say the primary reason is different evaluation metrics and different criteria for success. For example:
SAT + HS GPA is more predictive of freshmen year GPA than HS GPA alone, and to a lesser extent cumulative GPA at graduation. Every study finds this. Some find SAT in isolation is more predictive than GPA in isolation. I’d expect any review that focused on this criteria will find that SAT adds to the prediction of college GPA.
At test optional colleges, test optional graduates and test submitter graduates usually have a similar cumulative GPA and graduation rate. Every study I’ve seen that compares this found something similar to this effect. I’d expect any review at a selective, holistic admission college that focused on this criteria will find that SAT does not add much to the prediction of graduation rate or graduation GPA.
This makes it important to specify what is being evaluated, how the evaluation is done, and results; rather than just whether testing is useful or not useful.
Other relevant differences include things like restricted range, admission rate, and admission criteria. GPA may not be the best indicator of performance at a college where nearly everyone has a 4.0. Math SAT may not be the best indicator of performance at a college where nearly everyone has a 800. Test optional vs test require may not have much impact at the vast majority of colleges, which have near open admissions. As implied by comments above, there are expected to be different results for colleges that admit test optional primarily by GPA in isolation vs primarily by holistic criteria.
Yet many of these guys struggle when they come to school un the US. It is true the National Annual Exam is VERY DIFFICULT. At least the students from Asia spent years preparing and that is all many knows.
I almost died in Grand Canyon during Freshman year on a road trip for winter break when we got snowed in because one guy on our trip (Physics PhD student from Germany) never heard of torque steer or angular momentum from spinning wheel. He can solve the problem on paper, but give him a car in snow – no clue.
So I guess the UCs were always a bit more flexible on testing.