
SAT Scores Fall as More Students Take the Test - dpflan
https://www.wsj.com/articles/sat-scores-fall-as-more-students-take-the-test-11569297660?mod=rsswn
======
IMAYousaf
I missed 1 question when i took the SAT 6-7ish years ago, resulting in the
second highest possible score. It made me a US Presidential Scholars Medal
Program Candidate. Take what I say for what it’s worth, which probably isn’t a
lot, but I’d like to share my experience and why I believe I scored well.

I never took any prep course. I always was of the mindset that the only value
they provided was forced practice. I never bought that they taught secrets of
test taking.

Instead I bought 2 books, and 2 books only. One was the official SAT Guide
which was $20ish. Secondly I bought a Kaplan book which just had 12 tests in
it for $20. Both of these books were also available in the reference section
of the public library.

I worked through about a test a week the 4ish months prior to the SAT, and
read articles online about the SAT if I came across them. I felt very in the
know regarding the test and just flew through it when taking it.

I used that score to tutor others for pay, and my friends for free. I found
out that just walking people through the test was about confidence, which
really jumped people’s score up. Naturally most people I came across were
between a 1500 and an 1800 out of 2400. For people below that, they tended to
need remedial education to improve their scores. Between 1800 and 2150 usually
was a result of understanding patterns in the test and what to look for. Those
were learned through some rigor in prep using the two aforementioned books.
Finally, for students who wanted to score above a 2150 to a 2400, the
differences in those that did and didn’t were not educational content based,
but rather big picture problem solving strategy in how to logic through
problems and knowing what to look for.

The SAT, IMO, is a relatively good predictor of someone’s educational
attainment the first time they try one prior to any prep. I scored exactly
what I predicted and after $40 of self-study, which could’ve been done for
free, I scored what I knew I could.

~~~
dharmon
I only did alright on the SAT, but I smoked the GRE by doing something
similar.

The Kaplan book had a CD with a few practice tests. I think I did 2. If for no
other reason, they are super useful for figuring out how to pace yourself.

The math section was (is?) easy for most people on this site. This seems the
norm because the score/percentile relationship was incredibly high.

The English section kills people. My pro-tip is, in the same Kaplan book, they
have a list of the most common words. I made flashcards for the top 100, and
I'll be damned if like 80 of them didn't show up on the test. I imagine this
is similar for the SATs.

~~~
bmiller2
In grad school, we took an unofficial survey of GRE verbal and quant scores.
Far and away, the non English speaking students scored significantly higher
than natives. Anecdotally, The non native speakers actually studied in that
way you describe, and the native speakers assumed the fluency would carry its
weight instead

~~~
IMAYousaf
Hi. Thanks for sharing this. I suspect that would be true for foreign students
within programs across the board in the US, because you tend to learn as an
outsider through an application of “rigor” and more raw memorization than
higher order types of learning. I’m speaking this from experience as a
foreigner who moved to the US early on. I’ve always doubted many higher order
learning methods precisely because they didn’t ever distill the discipline to
work better...

------
swebs
Not surprising. If only a small percentage of students take the test, it's
only going to be the students on the top end of the bell curve. If everybody
takes the test, you're going to get results that reflects the general
population.

[http://archive.is/6GW9b](http://archive.is/6GW9b)

~~~
acdha
This is the detail which needs to be added to almost all mainstream coverage
of education stats — every year you'll see some hand-wringing about U.S.
students falling behind internationally and the authors never mention that the
effect is much weaker once you correct for the fact the U.S. has a much wider
range of students taking most tests. Usually almost all of these metrics come
back to the root cause of economic disparities along the spectrum from hard
poverty to not being able to afford tutors and SAT prep courses.

(This is also why the cool curriculum ideas or charter school concepts we hear
about never go anywhere: the TED Talk sounds great but inevitably once it
scales up it turns out that the effects were due to some sort of selection
bias (quite possibly unintentional) or simply lucky small sample sizes which
peters out at larger scale)

~~~
gumby
> the U.S. has a much wider range of students taking most tests.

Citation? All countries have a mix of wealthy, educated students, working
class students, students whose parents are drug addicts, immigrants who don't
speak the local language, etc. In my experience the US isn't that different
from other wealthy countries I've lived in.

SAT isn't really used for international comparison; a system like PISA does
cross-sectional studies of countries, not elites. The results are not
encouraging for the USA:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_St...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment)

[https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/](https://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/)

[http://www.oecd.org/pisa/](http://www.oecd.org/pisa/)

~~~
mieseratte
> Citation? All countries have a mix of wealthy, educated students, working
> class students, students whose parents are drug addicts, immigrants who
> don't speak the local language, etc. In my experience the US isn't that
> different from other wealthy countries I've lived in.

Yes, but many European countries engage in so-called tracking of students,
putting them in separate tracks for tradeswork, skilled labor, and university
such that the "dumb" ones aren't taking university entrance exams.

In the US this has become increasingly frowned upon by (perhaps) well-meaning
administrators who feel that to do this is unconscionable. In my freshman year
of high-school they had advanced academic and standard groupings in the same
school, but removed this my sophmore year. They re-branded all the base-level
courses as "College Prep," with "Honors" being the former advanced-track
classes, AP and IB courses already being branded as such.

Of course, if you were in the advanced group the counselors and teachers would
all push you into AP and IB courses but they also encouraged everyone to take
the SAT and ACT tests, to apply to university, and discouraged enrolling in
the trades program that the county offered (half-day academic, half-day trades
classes).

This type of "everyone goes to college" mentality is why the SAT is a poor
academic bellwether.

~~~
lizkm
>In the US this has become increasingly frowned upon by (perhaps) well-meaning
administrators who feel that to do this is unconscionable.

Because it is unconscionable. I dropped out of high-school at 16. I was able
to go back and earn a degree in computer science at the age of 28 at a
Canadian school. Under the European system where your life path and career
trajectory is decided for you at 14 years old, I wouldn't have been able to do
this.

~~~
mieseratte
What about tracking students in high-school precludes your being able to
attend university at the age of 28?

Insofar as I'm aware, one can change tracks in most tracking systems. It just
isn't entirely common, likely because it puts most on a path where they should
be.

~~~
lizkm
> What about tracking students in high-school precludes your being able to
> attend university at the age of 28?

Because the "dumb" students are pushed into trades instead. And good luck
going back to university when you don't have a long chain of prerequisite
courses from age 14 onwards. In the states you can just get a GED and take the
SAT (along with individual selection) to prove you belong in university.

Assigning a person a career based on a test they take at 14 seems awfully
reductive and like it would segregate students based on the social standing of
their parents. Wouldn't surprise me if the German system reduces social
mobility.

Should students have their entire lives mapped out for them at 14? And if so,
why at 14? Why not at 10, or 6, or at birth?

~~~
mieseratte
Nothing about a tracking system actively precludes your being able to jump
tracks later in life. To be frank, you're blindly speculating based on this
assumption.

> Assigning a person a career based on a test they take at 14 seems awfully
> reductive and like it would segregate students based on the social standing
> of their parents. Wouldn't surprise me if the German system reduces social
> mobility.

That's not how tracking works. They don't assign you a vocation.

~~~
lizkm
>Nothing about a tracking system actively precludes your being able to jump
tracks later in life

Nothing necessarily precludes it but does it really happen that often? I
couldn't find any data on this. Is there any evidence that "changing careers"
is easier and more likely under the German VET system as opposed to the US
system? In fact, evidence suggests that the permeability between the academic
and vocational tracks is quite low in actuality [0]. One would logically think
that making long "on the track" prerequisite chains a requirement for a career
change would add significant barriers to entry. And there is some evidence
that supports my theory that VET-like systems increase social stratification
and socioeconomic inequity [1][2]

>They don't assign you a vocation.

A difference without a distinction IMO. They assign you a track of schooling
which will leave you qualified for only a certain subset of jobs.

[0] [https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/a-skills-beyond-
scho...](https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/a-skills-beyond-school-
review-of-germany_9789264202146-en) page 38

[1]:
[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40461-016-0033-0](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40461-016-0033-0)

[2]: [https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-social-
stratificat...](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-social-
stratification-of-the-German-VET-system-Protsch-
Solga/9760e60c8cd8ea0671108383de99a7f438177474)

~~~
irishsultan
> Nothing necessarily precludes it but does it really happen that often? I
> couldn't find any data on this.

Does it happen often in the alternative system? You started with saying that
you left school at 14, then went to university at 28. No matter the system
that's going to be an unusual situation.

------
thrower123
This should have been the most predictable result ever. If only the top 20% of
students are taking the test, as used to be the case, then the average score
is going to be quite high. If you expand that pool with weaker students, it's
going to pull the average down. If you make everyone take the SAT, then you
are going to wind up with a lot of really low scores dragging that average
down hard.

They run into this all the time with mandated standardized testing. In smaller
school districts, just the relative number of special ed students from class
to class can create so much variance that year-to-year comparisons are
useless.

~~~
rowanG077
There are easy statistical methods to still get useable data from something
like this. Average is just the average.

~~~
thrower123
Oh, of course. But statistical illiteracy hurts us badly here. Even just
distinguishing between median and mean is beyond the abilities of most popular
reporting.

As it is, this article is almost worthless. The raw data would be interesting
to go through.

------
jrnichols
I remember seeing this in Texas a few years ago too. SAT scores fell
statewide, which made for anti-Texas fodder, but what was lost was the fact
that record numbers of black & hispanic students took it for the first time.

[https://www.texastribune.org/2012/09/24/texas-sat-scores-
dro...](https://www.texastribune.org/2012/09/24/texas-sat-scores-drop-
participation-rates-surge/)

------
erikstrand
For context, in the US there are 15.3 million students enrolled in high
school, 3.7 million of which are expected to graduate this year (i.e. a little
under a quarter, as one would expect) [1]. So the 2.2 million graduate test
takers mentioned in the WSJ article represent about 60% of the pool of fresh
high school graduates.

Also given the surrounding numbers sum to 100%, I'm guessing the author meant
to say 56% percent of SAT test takers have parents with a college degree,
rather than "56% of students whose parents have a degree took the test".
Probably just a careless mistake, but I still find it ironic (or perhaps
indicative) that no editors caught it even though it appears a few sentences
after "students struggled most in math".

[1]
[https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372#PK12_enroll...](https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372#PK12_enrollment)

------
caseysoftware
Interesting side effect of this:

Before - if 100 people took the test, there were 10 people in the top 10%.

Now - if 1000 people take the test, there are 100 people in the top 10%.

If we assume that most of the first 100 were already college track/high
achievers/however you want to describe them, then you just bumped a
_significant chunk_ of those people into the top 10%. Obviously, some of the
other 900 will also move into that group but - based on the overall average
dropping - not a huge number.

Fundamentally, it causes another form of "grade inflation" but for the tests
themselves. No wonder students apply to more and more schools. :(

------
knappa
A more interesting statistic would be the (percentage) change in the number of
students whose scores indicate that they are college-ready. Increasing that
number is, presumably, what these get-more-kids-to-take-the-SAT programs are
about.

~~~
user982
According to the article that percentage dropped to 45% from 47% last year,
but since ~100,000 more students took the exam the absolute number of college-
ready graduates rose by ~3000.

~~~
username90
If I am reading this right, we added 100k students got 3k new college ready
ones? So 3%? Seems like we are grasping at straws here.

Or is college readiness trending down for other reasons?

------
ineedasername
I work in higher ed tech, and the state I work in has been having showing this
trend for more than a decade, losing 2 points or so each year on average.

~~~
lonelappde
It's been going on for over 4 decades. They recentered the scaled score in
1995 to account for the downward shift in mean due to expansion of access.

------
noahlt
Related: US average marathon times have fallen in the past 20ish years, as
more people run marathons.

It's a good thing.

~~~
thaumasiotes
As I point out elsewhere in the thread, the proportion of new testees getting
very high scores is much higher than the proportion that were getting high
scores before, so this would be like if US average marathon times had risen
(falling times are good, not bad) in the past 20ish years as a lot of
professional marathon runners started to participate. It doesn't make any
sense given the raw data.

------
lifeisstillgood
A UK perspective - my son is now 10 and is in the age for taking two tests -
an 11+ test and a UK SAT test. They are basically the same thing and roughly
analogous I think to the US tests.

The 11+ score _may_ affect which secondary school he attends (some schools in
this part of the UK can be selective and so would choose to take only the
higher scoring kids. However at 11 the predictive power is less good and there
is sufficient competition that the selective cut off gets pushed down. anyway
it helps him if he wants to go to a selective school

The SAT - meh. It will affect the _school_ ranking - but has no affect
positive or negative for the pupil and as such seems pointless for him to
worry about or even take.

~~~
Vrondi
No. The SAT in the USA is a test people take in secondary school to get into
university. Very few 10-year-olds would be taking it.

~~~
mercutio2
Hmm. I took the SAT when I was 11, not sure how common that is.

I think it was pretty commonly used for admission to gifted programs in the
80s when I took it.

When I learned that the PSAT existed, I was curious why that wasn’t used,
instead, but... whatever.

------
peter303
Another interpretation is that young people are becoming dumber given their
obsession with smartphones and videogames. The skills I needed to master
before the "everything online" era where more mentally challenging and
strengthening than the current era.

I would call this the 'reverse Flynn effect' after the sociologist who
observed average IQ scores were rising a few points each decade for a century.
That had been attributed to universal schooling, sophisticated new electronic
media, white collar knowledge workers, etc. But now we have reached a turning
point perhaps due mental dependence on wired devices.

------
MayorMonty
(For perspective, I'm still in High School, and have scored pretty well on the
SAT)

I think what a lot of people fail to realize is that the SAT being based on
Aptitude is intentional. Doing well on the SAT means knowing how to _study_
for the SAT (with an advantage given to those who do well in school). That's
what the test is measuring, your ability to study.

~~~
ledauphin
yes and no. anecdotally, I did quite well on the SAT and never did a minute of
study for it.

it is certainly possible to study for it, but it is also possible to just be
naturally very good at standardized testing.

~~~
MayorMonty
Yes, and those who are naturally good at standardized testing (such as myself)
have an advantage on the SAT, which is one of its issues. But as far as
College Board is concerned, the actual content is largely irrelevant.

SAT Math does not test number sense or ability to reason with abstsactions,
instead how effective you are at applying a specific set of memorized rules.

SAT ERW _does_ test comprehension, but only in a very specific context. The
College Board specifically chooses passages that are meant to be boring, so
the reader skims them. SAT Reading is mostly about the grit of paying
attention to detail.

SAT Writing, of course is about applying specific prescriptivist grammar
rulesets (no singular they comes to mind)

Fundamentally, SAT is designed to be a test of attention to detail and
studying, not content mastery. Schools will look at transcripts, AP Tests, or
SAT Subject Tests to determine that.

------
mikelyons
Seems like SAT scores skew in the direction of people who are capable of
"giving a shit" about a test. If you don't "give a shit" about tests, then
you'll likely be at most a C student and a ~1150 (just an example number) on
the SAT regardless of your level of intelligence.

------
sunstone
Regress to the mean.

------
fortran77
Also, like it or not, the SAT does predict pretty well how a person would do
in a typical college program.

Maybe too many people are going to college! And/or we need other types of
post-high school education.

~~~
JCharante
I used to not understand why the SAT was supposed to be a predictor of how
someone would do in a college program, but after checking the schedule of my
college Chinese class and studying to memorize the material everyday, I've
realized that the SAT is just like any midterm or final for a class, albeit a
bit broader in subject. If someone studies for the SAT then they'll probably
study for their classes. Then again I think I spent a total of seven different
days (not 168 hours, just some time spread across seven non-consecutive-days)
studying for the SAT, which is nothing compared to what I have to do now. If
only I could go back in time and retake the test with my newfound knowledge.

~~~
mercutio2
I sure didn’t study for the SATs, nor did any of my close friends.

Our college educated parents told us to not worry about it.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/6GW9b](http://archive.is/6GW9b)

------
austincheney
I am not sure how practical this sort of standardized testing is. I am in the
high performance range on most aptitude and general knowledge tests, but I did
horribly on the SAT. This didn't slow me down from graduating college and
becoming a senior software developer. Likewise, I have seen people who scored
supremely high on the SAT that simply cannot perform in the real world.

------
JJMcJ
Let's not forget that many "great schools" are really cram academies for the
SAT.

~~~
jackcosgrove
How do you cram for the SAT?

I've always understood the ACT as more about content and the SAT as more about
aptitude, which means studying for the SAT is less useful than studying for
the ACT.

You can teach test-taking strategies but those hardly require 2.5 years.

I agree some schools provide a better learning environment than others, and
also engage in selective admissions either explicitly or via the socioeconomic
status of the students' parents. Both of those could cause standardized test
scores to improve but I wouldn't call it cramming.

~~~
JJMcJ
> more about aptitude

Though this was some years ago, I took both ACT and SAT and found them almost
identical.

I know SAT at least has added an essay section and otherwise moved away from
multiple choice but still, to imagine you can't cram for it seems absurd.

In middle 70s, Federal Trade Commission investigated Stanley H. Kaplan, the
big test prep company, over advertising that they could raise test scores.
Well, investigation showed that yes, Kaplan could raise your SAT scores.

Like the College Board claims they can give approximately the same test for
decades but somehow you can't study for it? Something doesn't seem right.

~~~
hellocs1
Source on this?

the SAT of the 70s were much more of an IQ test than now. I'd be surprised if
Kaplan prep could raise more than 20 or 30 points on average.

Also, having used Kaplan's prep material... They're pretty bad. But that was
in the early 2010s for myself so they might have fallen in quality.

~~~
JJMcJ
Friend worked for Kaplan during the time period of the investigation.

IQ - you know IQ tests are renormed to reflect education levels, and raw
scores mapped to give the bell curve?

So an IQ of 100 in 1900 would end up about 70 today. 70 oddly enough the
number used to "prove" that people in the less developed world are inferior.

------
rjkennedy98
Is it all because more students take the test? Reports of falling IQ scores in
many developed countries have been pretty well documented. Perhaps it is
starting to happen in the US also.

~~~
skolos
Could you please provide references to these "pretty well documented" studies?

Thanks.

~~~
kypro
[https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2016-dutton.pdf)

[https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iq-rates-are-
dropping-...](https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iq-rates-are-dropping-
many-developed-countries-doesn-t-bode-ncna1008576)

This is fairly well documented. Average IQ scores in France have been
declining a couple of points per decade if I recall correctly...

I believe mass immigration from low IQ countries and dysgenics are often
sourced as two of the potential reasons. But I have no idea how true that is.

------
MisterTea
When I took the test a perfect score was 1600. Without getting into detail,
the day of the test I was late and didnt get enough sleep. I wound up getting
an 1160 and I never studied. Though, my grades were shit so the good unis
rejected me outright.

The interesting part was one of the principals A/A+ list students was next to
me at the college fair and hung his head in shame when they asked him about
his SAT score and he replied with 900. A fucked up D student with an 1160 and
a studious A student with a 900 both turned down. Go figure.

~~~
user982
I was confused until I realized that you think 1160 was a good score.

~~~
vonmoltke
Depends on your definition of "good". The year I took the SAT (1997) the
average score was 1017.

