More universities are making the SAT optional - rant

[cosine]

Just saw this on Yahoo news: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20060405/ts_usatoday/moreuniversitiesaregoingsatoptional

More universities are making the SAT optional. I understand the reasoning that some students have trouble taking standardized tests, even when they excel in school.

The new article says:

"The tests have taken on too much significance. It's gotten out of control," says Steven Syverson, Lawrence's dean of admissions. "The amount of time, energy and money spent on tests distorts how students spend their time. We want them to be high school students."

You know, four weeks before I took the ACT (I know I switched tests here in this post, but both tests should be similar, and one's experiences with one should pretty much transfer to the other) I picked up two test prep books from a bookstore, and spent and hour or two a day working through them. I scored a composite score of 30 on the ACT, which put me in the 97th percentile of high school students taking the test. Now, I believe that if students aren't scoring well on standardized tests just by doing their high school course work, (and are spending too much time and hard work preparing for the test instead of just doing a little review like I did before the test), than either there is too much asked for on the test or (in my opinion) students aren't learning their course subject work well enough.

The high school grade-point average is the best predictor of how a student will do in college, and the SAT adds little, say admissions officials at the schools that dropped the test this year.

Probably true. Many colleges want these tests, but then when you talk to them they're more interested in one's GPA then the score on the test. My 3.845 GPA interested the colleges I talked with more than my ACT score of 30.



Okay, disjointed rant over.

[jefnvk]

I dunno.  I never took the SAT, only the ACT.  The one thing that I noticed that the ACT could test someone on that the GPA couldn't really, is on the spot thinking.  The science and math parts of the test, I had never studied parts of what was asked.  However, the necessary information was there, and you could logically put it together to come up with an answer.  This was especially true for the science portion.  I floated through high school with a 3.3 unweighted/3.8 weighed GPA (weighed GPA's are another fun problem).  Suprised some when I got a 34 on the ACT.

[cosine]

The one thing that I noticed that the ACT could test someone on that the GPA couldn't really, is on the spot thinking.  The science and math parts of the test, I had never studied parts of what was asked.  However, the necessary information was there, and you could logically put it together to come up with an answer.  This was especially true for the science portion.

Bingo. In case you're wondering, I had the same experience. As long as one can read a graph and extrapolate the data they provided to answer the question they asked, one should be able to ace the science section of the ACT. The math section was a little more involved, but it didn't require knowing or figuring out any extraodinary hard questions.

[zahc]

I didn't miss a single question on the science section. I'd never taken trig or geometry and managed to pull a 33, with a 24 on the math section. I agree that there is only a weak correlation between test scores and intelligence; I'm living proof, being dumb as a rock.

[CatsDieNow]

I am glad that GPA wasn't the only criteria - I'd have never gotten into college otherwise.  I had an irrational fear of homework.

Fortunatly, I've always tested well.

[BrokenPaw]

I don't know whether they were giving the ACT back in the days when I was a high-school junior, but if they were, I must not have been paying attention that day...  

My test prep involved the following rigorous procedure:
I got up, took a shower, and went to the testing place.

I got a 1500 (780 math, 720 verbal, and I'm still kicking myself over that math score) on the SAT. I took Chemistry, Math Level 3, and English ACH tests, and got 800, 800, and 750 respectively.  And 5/5 on the AP Computer Science test my sophomore year in HS.

My HS GPA wasn't too bad, but it wasn't stellar.  I was accepted early decision to VaTech based more or less on my test scores alone.

5 semesters later, my academic advisor at VT was throwing my arse out of the school for, essentially, utter failure to have a noticeable GPA at all.  So no, SATs and other standardized tests aren't really much of a valid predictor of college performance.  At least not in my case.

-BP

[K Frame]

For the college that I got into I didn't do all that well on the SATs.

I got into it largely based on the strength of my interview with the recruiter.

[The Rabbi]

I took the SAT many moons ago and mercifully have forgotten most of the experience.  Ditto with the GED.
Recollection is that the SAT is a poor predictor of performance in college.  The best predictor is how well students did in High School.  That shouldnt be too surprising.

[Azrael256]

My university is only vaguely aware that I took the SAT.  I told them, and said I would happily send them my scores, but they declined.  Maybe they can request it on their own.

The SAT has been widely discredited as a measure of intelligence and academic performance.  Hence the addition of the SATII battery and the complete overhaul in the last couple of years.  The ACT is, as I understand, a larger test, but it is still lacking.

I have observed one important factor that seems to completely discredit both HS GPA and the two standardized tests: writing skills.  I was asked to help review applications for my university's honors program.  A great many students with high test scores (1300+)  and solid GPAs (3.6 and up) wrote absolutely awful essays.  Probably half of them wrote on a level that I would be willing to accept but they failed to answer the question(s), so their application was tossed.  Roughly ten percent turned in an essay that was both well written, and addressed the prompt directly.  Out of around 100 students, I voted to accept twelve.  About twenty were ultimately accepted.

Since I'm about to digress into a rant about this "progressive" model of education that we seem to adore in this country, I'll just stop right now.

[Guest]

As a college student graduating at the end of this semester the modern educational process is I think rather clear to me.  In HS and in College I have found that grades are almost wholly the whim of the instructor.  Toss in tenor and it gets even worse.  I have found this to be true for the soft studies and hard sciences as well.  As much as I loath standardized testing, despite doing quite well on them, I prefer them to GPA as that simply seems to me as measure of conformity to the will of the instructor.  
I am frankly alarmed at how insidious the educational process has taught education as conformity.  Our popular culture seems to also have embraced it.  The idea that its cool to skip school and generally be an idiot is quite prevelent.  So is the idea of just 'going along to get along' which you will hear echoed from most pareants and peers.  When education and learning is so part of conformity to the system with the disintegration of princepals and ideals being neccessary for success its like some dystopian system where the non comformists margenalize themsevles by being willfully ignorant.
My second rant of the day, Im on a role.

[K Frame]

"Toss in tenor..."

That's hitting a high note...

[Twycross]

The thing about tests such as the SAT and ACT is that they only measure potential abilities, whereas a GPA indicates how well you actually perform. Standardized tests do not take into account such things as motivation, how much a student likes the work, or any of the other factors that go into success. I scored a 1460 on the SAT, but I'm not exactly going to get my B.S. as the valedictorian. But it did get me a couple scholarships.

[Azrael256]

Ned, you've got it nailed.  The "progressive" theory puts all students in the same classes in a chronological format that gives no rewards for excellence and no help for failure.  The student simply passes each stage at the universally defined pace, regardless of when he actually masters the material, and then continues on.  You'd think that by the time a student is in high school, he would be allowed to focus on the subjects in which he excels and simply brought up to standard in the subjects he fails.  Instead, everybody is held to the same low standard, so nobody learns anything.  Of course, to have different standards based on the students' aptitudes is discriminatory/expensive/difficult and requires teachers who actually know what they're teaching.

Don't even get me started on this "well rounded" nonsense that universities are spewing.  I'd rather be razor sharp than well rounded.