
SAT scores can have impact beyond college - tokenadult
http://www.post-trib.com/news/neighbors/1485734,bradshaw.article
======
jseliger
Attention those of you only skimmed the article or haven't read it at all: pay
attention to this piece at the end: "Gerald M. Bradshaw of Crown Point
consults with students on how to gain admission to selective colleges,
universities and law schools." In other words, the author of the article has a
tremendous interest in making you think that SAT and other scores are
important, and he cites no hard data indicating the growing trend he alleges
he exists. Those of you who voted this up probably didn't read PG's essay, "<a
href="[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html">The](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)
Submarine</a>", which covers just this kind of thing.

Stories like this make me wish I could vote articles down.

~~~
tokenadult
You have done something more useful than voting the article down by expressing
precisely why you think it is a suspect source. Thanks. I submitted the
article figuring I would get some well-informed replies about its accuracy
here.

After edit: Note that some other replies are indicating that some current
employers ask job candidates for SAT scores. That has never been my
experience, which is why I wanted the reality check on the submitted article.
In some hiring processes, I could have gained ground against other candidates
if SAT scores had come up in the hiring process.

~~~
scott_s
But did you not even notice the bit at the end? Halfway through, I figured
this guy was selling services, and went to the bottom to find out what his
affiliation was.

~~~
tokenadult
I was aware of other workplaces, from other accounts by persons not in the
test prep business, where SAT scores are a hiring criterion, so I thought this
recent blog post was a good enough source to bring that issue into discussion.

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yummyfajitas
I recently had a phone interview stage with some consultants who asked about
my SAT scores (note: I graduated college in 2002).

After following through and discussing other aspects of the job with them, I'm
now inclined to give out low SAT scores when asked. It will be a great filter
to avoid interviewing at places I would hate to work at.

~~~
Brushfire
Agreed. I would actually laugh at someone who asked me for SAT scores. I'd
want to see actual research documenting that SAT's are actually a good
predictor of job performance in the long run. (Hint: they arent). In the
consulting field, I would expect people to do their research before they pick
arbitrary metrics of selection. They might as well ask you your favorite
university or sports team. That (might) be barely classifiable as a culture
fit...

Its really amusing to me that companies use this as a valid benchmark.
Especially, as the article states, for SALES of all things.

 _Configuresoft Inc., a Woodland Park, Colo., systems-management software
company, requires combined scores of 1,400 in CR and math for applicants
applying for sales positions. A spokesman for the firm said the company's
clients routinely demand salespeople with high test scores._

I declare shenanigans. When (in the course of a sales discussion) does the
salesperson's high school SAT scores come up? How about never.

If anyone knows these guys or has seen these practices, I'd love to hear the
actual basis for this from an HR perspective, since I dont believe the
research on the topic puts SAT's anywhere near predictive, especially in
sales.

~~~
dschobel
How do you measure an entry-level candidate salesperson otherwise though? In
CS you can ask theory questions and ask them to program something for you. In
sales you... ?

I agree it may be a lousy metric, but that doesn't mean it's not the best one
they have.

~~~
jacoblyles
Traditionally in sales you hire a ton of candidates, give them hefty
performance goals right out of the gate, and then fire over 80% of them in the
first month. Rinse and repeat until you have your organization staffed.

It's a brutal field.

~~~
bd
_We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all
know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize?

...

Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired._

<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104348/quotes>

------
asciilifeform
If this is actually true, it is yet another consequence of the infamous court
decision banning IQ tests in the hiring process:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Company>

Want to know why you had to go up to your ears in tuition debt? That's why.
College has become an expensive IQ test. And now, even college is in the
process of being watered down into meaninglessness as a qualification.

~~~
tokenadult
There is much truth in this reply. I don't know that I buy into the assertion
of the late Richard Herrnstein that all employers of ALL kinds of workers
would do well to screen job candidates by IQ tests, but the law now in the
United States is that they can't. Absent a specific validation study for a
specific job, employers have to take care about having hiring requirements
with "disparate impact" by ethnicity. Requiring postsecondary education that
is not strictly necessary for the job gets a free pass, legally, but requiring
a threshold IQ test, even if the threshold is low, is legally suspect. So now
indeed many young people who are barely college-ready have to go to some kind
of diploma mill college, often at great personal expense, to maximize their
likelihood of getting jobs that don't really even require a college education.

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rantfoil
Why is it that management consulting jobs seem to be regarded as some sort of
wonder-job that guarantees success? It's certainly a great field and
definitely helps, but I think whether or not you can become a management
consultant after your stint at an Ivy is hardly the measure of "success" and
"impact" that the author of this article connotes.

Here's the straight dope: We need more engineers. Real innovators and
builders, who can create real value with their own hands, and not through
meetings and Powerpoint Decks.

And if higher SAT scores mean that people can build things that really solve
problems and are valuable, then hell yes there is impact. I suspect there's
less correlation there between SAT scores and success than whether you got
that great job out of college.

~~~
nostrademons
The engineering equivalent of Bain or McKinsey is Google. While they don't
outright ask for SATs now, they come close. One of the other comments on this
post suggests that they used to.

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elai
Is this a PR piece created by the company that sells and manages the SAT?

~~~
scott_s
Close:

 _Gerald M. Bradshaw of Crown Point consults with students on how to gain
admission to selective colleges, universities and law schools. Contact him at
www.bradshawcollegeconsulting.com or call 663-3041. His email is gerald_
bradshaw@post.harvard.edu._

It's in this guy's best interest to make people think the SATs are important,
and getting into elite colleges is important. I put no value in this column.

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dinkumthinkum
bah. I didn't take the SAT and I'm a PhD candidate at a major public CS
research department. Yeah, not taking that has really impacted my life, let me
tell you about it.

~~~
teuobk
Did you take the GRE?

Actually, I'm curious if GRE scores have the same impact as SAT scores at the
firms that care about standardized test scores. Or the ACT, for that matter.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
I took the general GRE; I didn't take the CS GRE, in fact, I was told not to
by my advisor. The general GRE is usually a graduate school requirement rather
than a department requirement.

------
tokenadult
My comment apropos Hacker News is that this kind of hiring process might
provide a strong incentive to form a start-up and become the boss rather than
one more guinea pig for some other company's human resources process.

~~~
nostrademons
That was my theory too, all throughout my teens and early 20s. Then I actually
did it, and now I'm not so sure.

Forming a startup exposes you to a _lot_ of completely arbitrary randomness -
probably more than your average HR department. You think that being denied
because of your SATs sucks - how about failing because a competitor you never
knew about launched literally 2 days before you and stole the limelight? Or
getting turned down from YC for unknown reasons? Or having your startup fall
apart because your cofounder gets into business school? Or succeeding because
you just happened to end up on SlashDot, or because your chief competitor
couldn't deliver a button for the Netscape search bar?

You'll always be a guinea pig, because human beings act in capricious and
arbitrary ways. You just have the choice of existing at a customer's whim, an
investor's whim, or an employer's whim.

------
jfarmer
If anyone asked for my SAT score I'd laugh in their face. I don't even
remember my score, honestly.

~~~
endtime
Well, how old are you? If you're in your 40's, that might make sense. If
you're 22, not so much.

~~~
jfarmer
I'm 25.

~~~
nostrademons
I'm 27 and I still remember mine. I even remember which question I got wrong.

~~~
tigerthink
What was it? (I just registered for the SAT after reading this article. Did
you pay the $12.00 to see the questions you got wrong and info like that?
Looked like a ripoff to me. What's it gonna be, a 2-page printout?)

~~~
nostrademons
It basically came down to not knowing what "ennui" meant. I think it was
something like "apathy : indifference :: " and then I put "boredom : ennui" or
something like that, because it seemed plausible and none of the other options
really fit. But it was one of the other options. :-( Funny, too, since I'd
just read that "apathy, indifference, and ennui" are three of the most common
SAT words, and I should've made sure to know what each of them meant. But I
was pretty religious about not studying for tests, so I didn't.

I did pay the $12 for detailed score reports, but I knew immediately coming
out of the test that I'd flubbed it. I took it the same day as my sister, and
I knew I didn't know what "ennui" meant, so I asked her and she'd gotten it
right. Was still hoping it'd come in under the freebie limit thanks to
recentering, but no: my year, you could get up to 2 wrong and still get a
perfect score, but this was #3. (The other 2 were careless mistakes; I don't
even remember them.)

------
Frocer
Investment banks and consulting firms almost always ask for your SAT scores
when I was coming out of college. It's just another filter to "guess" how
smart you. It's unfortunate that most firms assume high SAT score = high IQ.

But put yourself in their shoes... if you receive 500+ resumes per school, and
you only have time to interview 24 candidates in the first round, and 50% of
them have 3.5+ GPA, what do you do to narrow down the interview list?

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strlen
If I am asked (other than, say, at a standard carbon copied HR job application
form -- where I will leave these fields blank) for my SAT score or a GPA, that
will be last question I'm asked by that company.

------
tigerthink
Damn, I didn't take the SAT because I didn't need it for my education path.
How old can I be? :-P

------
jhancock
I know an IT firm in Shanghai that gives an IQ test to all new employees. You
have to score over 140 to stay on past your probation period.

Although IQ and SAT might be good indicators, fortunately, I can actually
interview programmers and get to the heart of what I need.

------
timcederman
I'm surprised at how long your SAT, but more importantly, your GPA, affect
getting a job.

~~~
queensnake
Agreed, I've seen jobs postings and had inquiries, and not entry-level, where
a requirement is a 3.5+ GPA. GPA is like IQ in that employers can't ask for
it. But on the other hand if you don't volunteer it (and it's 3.5+), they
don't have to hire you, either.

~~~
nostrademons
Google asks for it:

<http://www.google.com/intl/en/jobs/joininggoogle/resume.html>

~~~
queensnake
huh; either I was misinformed or, it was a state-specific constraint.

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hs
methink mine was in the 1000 range, zomg i'm doomed!

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banned_man
SATs are taken as an approximation for a person's IQ, which is illegal to use
as a hiring metric. IQ (and its legal proxies) is a crappy hiring metric, but
unfortunately, it's better than pretty much everything else that's used (GPA,
interview, resume).

