

College Panel Calls for Less Focus on SATs - jaydub
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.html?hp

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smanek
In my experience, SATs are one of the few good predictors of intelligence (in
a necessary-but-not-sufficient sort of way).

Truth be told, the SATs aren't particularly hard so most bright people could
walk in and take the test cold turkey and pull at least a 1500. Of course,
there were a lot of false positives from people who took prep courses and
worked their asses off (but, as a former princeton review tutor, I _never_ saw
more than a 100 point gain in any student no matter how hard they worked - and
most were lucky to get 50 points). A kid whose parents had a few grand to burn
on a princeton review course could boost his score from 1300 to 1350, but
never to 1550.

The problem with GPA/extracurriculars were that a lot of not very bright
people could pull 4.0s and have good 'leadership' experience by gaming the
system. And, even worse, a lot of smart people couldn't. A lot of the smartest
people I know barely graduated highschool (or didn't). They saw the bullshit
for what it was, and often had a knack for rubbing people the wrong way
(especially at 16 - most of them can 'play the game' as adults).

(Note: all my experience was with the old 1600 point SAT)

~~~
smelendez
> Of course, there were a lot of false positives from people who took prep
> courses and worked their asses off (but, as a former princeton review tutor,
> I never saw more than a 100 point gain in any student no matter how hard
> they worked - and most were lucky to get 50 points).

Is that a "false positive" from a school's point of view? The goal is to
predict who will do well in college. You can do well in college by being smart
(quick comprehension, good memory, good brain for math, etc.) or by studying
hard.

~~~
DabAsteroid
_You can do well in college by being smart ... or by studying hard._

Are there MIT graduates who are not smart?

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gamble
Despite periodic bouts of hand-wringing like this, I doubt you'll see the SATs
go away any time soon. Education is too decentralized in the US for
universities to depend on high-school marks. The alternative to standardized
testing is a rigorous, universal curriculum overseen by the state or federal
government; otherwise, people will game the system by sending their children
to whichever school marks the most generously.

~~~
Retric
Collages use SAT scores because they are a better indicator of student
performance than highschool GPA, or student’s involvement in outside
activities etc. They might not split the population on the _correct_ racial or
economic fashion, but the simple fact is they are a strong indicator as to who
will finish their freshman year. Compare the number of people who dropped out
of collage with an old SAT score above 1400 to those with an SAT score below
1400 and you will see a dramatic gap.

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silencio
Can't happen fast enough.

I'm unhappy about the weight SAT (and ACT) scores are given in the application
process because I will be a (junior level) transfer student and I see even
less relevance of the SAT in my position when it's already fairly useless for
freshmen. I find it mindboggling and frustrating to think that half the
colleges I am applying to are requiring such a useless thing while the others
are doing the right thing by not even caring for such a score.

In college, I have taken math classes above second semester calculus. I have
fulfilled basic general education requirements. I have fulfilled more than
expected of a junior-level transfer student in classes related to my major.
All of those credits should overwhelmingly trump what I can do in a few hours
with a pencil and a calculator for something laughable in comparison. To the
point that taking such a test would be unnecessary to point out what I am
capable of doing: honestly, is how well I do on some trivial algebra (lazily
done entirely with my ti-89) or writing going to tell you how appealing of a
computer science major I will be? I'm pretty sure you can safely ignore the
SAT and take a look at my classes, grades, experience and recommendations to
make a better guess. And the same should apply to high school students as
well.

Not to say I did not do well on the last SAT exam I took (on the contrary,
because the material is so basic), but why I had to spend the money and waste
the time to do so in the first place just stinks. I have taken prep classes
way back in high school, and I've tutored people in turn. The article is spot
on when it says that students are spending time gaming the SAT.

(On a slightly different sidenote, I don't think the SAT is the only cause for
high school classes (at least in the US) being so focused on a small
curricula, I believe that's more directly caused by NCLB and tying school
performance on exams to funding. But that's a whole different rant/issue in
itself.)

~~~
smanek
If the SAT was so easy (and I agree that it is), what's the big deal? It's 3
hours of your life and costs under 50 bucks (and they waive the fee if you can
show need). You didn't have to spend a huge amount of time studying or money
taking prep courses.

Your rant reminds me of professional programmers who get insulted when asked
to do fizz-buzz during an interview. What's the big deal? It's the quickest
and easiest way to weed out the riff-raff. In my experience, the ones who get
insulted are usually the ones who can't do it.

~~~
KevinMS
Some people that score well on interview tests are the worst fuckuppited
programmers you'd never want to work with. And some who blow it are a pleasure
to work with.

Those little tests don't account for documentation, architecture, scalability,
readability, refactoring, etc. I don't give a damn if somebody can't come up
with some little algorithm during the pressure of a test that could have
easily just googled for, and also what is the best practices for that
algorithm.

You are probably somebody new to the industry.

~~~
silencio
That's exactly how I feel.

Fizzbuzz and the SAT alike are to me just filling some very limited uses where
they would come in handy - like if you ever DID ask fizzbuzz from an
interviewee you'd at most be able to weed out people who don't know what the
heck they're talking about, like some moron applying for a Java position that
knows no Java. But to me the difference is that the SAT is like fizzbuzz
applied to everyone regardless...if you had an interviewee that you _knew_ in
every way that fizzbuzz would be a waste of time (even that tiny amount of
time) because they've proved themselves in some other way, you wouldn't ask.
That's pretty much all I'm wanting. Some things are just not worth the effort
because there's plenty else to see who they are and what they are capable of
doing.

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KevinMS
Its been shown you can actually score well on the SATs, at least a while ago
when it was on paper and multiple choice, without actually having to read the
questions. To me thats a failure of a test.

Maybe they've fixed this bug, but here's an example. If you have a math
problem like, (substituting x for actual words)

x x 5 x 5 x x x

And your choices are a) 5 b) 10 c) 15 d) 25

If this question is at the _beginning_ of the test, its most likely the
easiest solution, so pick 10. This is because the first questions are moved to
the front because they are most easily solved by the worst test takers. These
people, no matter how twisted their reasoning, most likely will come up with
10 by adding the two numbers they see, or just pick 5 because they just saw a
5

Towards the middle of the test you'd go with 25, because these are less
likely, and necessarily wont be guessed by the dummies, but the people having
reached this point will do something fancier like multiply the numbers
together,

At the end of the test, where its hardest to reach, the answer would be 15
because you are least likely to come up with that answer.

This is the key to the whole hack- the answer to a difficult question cannot
be accidentally guessed, otherwise, it would end up in the first questions, or
just be thrown out. You see, they couldn't determine the level of difficulty
of a question by reading it, they did statistically by who got it right, and
how well that person did on the overall test, so if you had a question that
was answered correctly by most takers who also got most of the other questions
correct, and got wrong by those who didn't do well on the rest of the test,
that was a "hard" question.

When this was uncovered the testing company freaked out and the move to
computers couldn't come fast enough for them (they administer these tests on
computers yet?) Its because the test can dynamically be calibrated for the
test taker and you can't use the first questions, middle questions, last
questions rule.

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mdasen
And replace it with. . .?

Grades? Those inflated things?

Recommendations? Wonder how long it will be before a family sues a teacher who
gives a poor recommendation. HR managers already overwhelmingly provide
positive feedback about former employees.

Work samples? Awesome, except that you could get someone else to do it for
you.

Activities? Well, too many students are creating shell activities where they
hold leadership positions. No meetings, no members to run against you for
president, no hassle, no mess.

Not that the SAT is much better considering the test-prep that goes on and the
fact that the College Board no longer indicates different test conditions.

Creating effective screens (both for school admissions and employers) is very
difficult. You can create positive correlations between things - for example,
those with higher SAT scores tend to be smarter. Doesn't mean that you don't
have random idiots with high scores and smart people with low ones. But there
is a positive correlation. As such, employers and schools will use that just
as a life-insurance company would use the fact that you're a smoker to
correlate with a greater chance of dying young. Some smokers live very long
lives, but there is a positive correlation the other way.

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markbao
There are two major components in the theorized 66-75% of your college
application decision, and that is 1) performance in high school and 2) SATs.
If SATs are taken less seriously as masses of people say that it is an
inaccurate prediction of intelligence, only past performance is a major factor
in the admission process.

And perhaps you're like me who didn't give a damn about what the school
teaches, because other things seem more important, like entrepreneurship, and
yet extracurriculars and character only make about 25-33% of the decision.

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DabAsteroid
Score-by-family-income/parental-education table (abridged) from the report
.pdf (p40):

[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922admissions.pdf)

    
    
      SAT Reasoning Test   Critical  Math  Writing
                           Reading 
      Family Income
    
      Less than $10,000      427     451     423
      $10,000 - $20,000      453     472     446
      $20,000 - $30,000      454     465     444
      $30,000 - $40,000      476     485     466
      $40,000 - $50,000      489     496     477
      $50,000 - $60,000      497     504     486
      $60,000 - $70,000      504     511     493
      $70,000 - $80,000      508     516     498
      $80,000 - $100,000     520     529     510
      More than $100,000     544     556     537
      
      
      Highest Level of     Critical  Math  Writing
      Parental Education   Reading
      
      No HS Diploma          421     445     418
      HS Diploma             466     476     457
      Associate Degree       484     492     473
      Bachelor’s Degree      522     533     513
      Graduate Degree        560     569     552
    

(College Board score report, 2007. Retrieved from
[http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/c...](http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2007/national-)
report.pdf)

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DabAsteroid
Full-text link:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)

Commission Report .pdf:

[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922admissions.pdf)

NYT article comments:

[http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/09/22/edu...](http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/09/22/education/22admissions.html)

Excerpt from article:

 _Mr. Fitzsimmons’s group, which was convened by the National Association for
College Admission Counseling, also expresses concerns “that test scores appear
to calcify differences based on class, race/ethnicity and parental educational
attainment.”_

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DabAsteroid
Score-by-race table from the report .pdf (p40):

[http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922...](http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/20080922admissions.pdf)

    
    
      Average SAT Composite Score by Race/Ethnic Group, 2007 
      
      African American/Black            17.0
      American Indian/Alaska Native     18.9
      Caucasian American/White          22.1
      Hispanic                          18.7
      Asian American/Pacific Islander   22.6
      Other/No Response                 21.6
      

(ACT National Score Report, 2007. Retrieved from
<http://www.act.org/news/data07/charts/index.html>)

