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Old 02-18-2014, 08:25 PM
 
28 posts, read 61,169 times
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I watched PBS Newshour tonight and saw a story on a brand new study (link here) concerning SATs. NPR as well as others ran with the story (link here). Here is basically the finding:

Few significant differences between submitters and non‐submitters of testing were observed in (college) Cumulative GPAs and graduation rates, despite significant differences in SAT/ACT scores.


A professor of Asian Studies at a small liberal arts college (1,769 total students) conducted the study. He asked the question, “Are college admissions decisions reliable for students who are admitted without SAT or ACT scores?”

But this one study shows an epidemic going on in Social Science research. Often, they don't share their underlying data, so it cannot be independently tested/examined/heck... verified! No where in the 70 page study does Hiss reveal the 33 institutions and instead refers to them by codes, like PU6, MS5, etc. Why not share the school names?

It's because these 33 do not (really cannot) represent a cross section of the United States. There are 800 colleges that do not require standardized tests, but 95%+ of these (link) are very small satellite/rural schools. Of the ~150 top ranked US colleges, I can only find 12 that do not use testing as a requirement... 5 of these 12 are in Texas, which as an automatic admissions policy.

The study used a very small set of a very small set of colleges, that don't come close to representing the true higher education landscape of the United States. Second, there was no control group in the study. In other words, did they study the final college GPA to (entry) standardized test distributions at colleges like Harvard too?

My guess is that some of the 33 represented are Washington State (mentioned in NPR piece), University of Mississippi, Sojourner-Douglass College, Dickinson College, Columbia College, Smith College, among others. I think ~4 of the 6 public universities came from the state of Texas. Bet UT Austin is included, which would mean that 50K of the 123K in the study came from a single school. 50K is referenced as the upper range for a single school in the study.

Furthermore, the study uses Cumulative GPA. So how does Sojourner-Douglass' 55% freshman retention affect the outcome? Are dropouts considered in the underlying data. And keep in mind the vast majority of applicants do submit test data for consideration, regardless of school policy. 63% (link) of Bates applicants submit. Even the premise that 149 points in SAT scores is considered a "reasonably large difference" does not sound large enough to me?

I can go on an on, if anyone is interested...

Do SATs matter? I am not posting to argue it either way. I have no idea. But I don't think Bill Hiss has any idea either. And I think we all need to be careful taking studies like this at face value. PBS (link) could have easily asked for the underlying data, but instead gave a 6 minute advertisement to this study. Just posting this as an FYI. Was asked by a friend to look into the study. I really do have no opinion on the question... just that many studies are highly biased and flawed.
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Old 02-18-2014, 09:30 PM
 
874 posts, read 1,644,450 times
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I don't find SAT's reasonable sources to determine if a person is eligible to get accepted to a university/college. They make new SAT's all the time and switch the questions up. This makes me realize if one person taking the test in January will have a much harder test than a person taking it in April.

I don't think they matter. Grades are more credible to me.
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Old 02-18-2014, 09:57 PM
 
Location: Howard County, MD
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People hype it up too much, but I think it can be something of an indicator of a student's overall intellect. In HS many/most of the people I knew had good grades, but the ones who also did well on the SAT to me stood out as the genuinely intelligent ones, whereas many of the others were just "grinders"- type-A kids who obsessed over grades and put up with all the busy work, but never had anything interesting or insightful to say.
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Old 02-19-2014, 01:23 AM
 
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It seems they wanted to adopt the policy used in China during the cultural revolution: no test, no scores. Children of the oppressed class (workers, revolutionists...) went to college directly though they could not read properly. The government found jobs for them afterwards.
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Old 02-19-2014, 07:01 AM
 
11,642 posts, read 23,845,523 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bettafish View Post
It seems they wanted to adopt the policy used in China during the cultural revolution: no test, no scores. Children of the oppressed class (workers, revolutionists...) went to college directly though they could not read properly. The government found jobs for them afterwards.
The biggest difference is that many of the schools tested were not public schools so their policies are not government policies.
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Old 02-19-2014, 07:09 AM
 
13,252 posts, read 33,417,017 times
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I don't think that SAT's are a good indication of how well one will do in college. They show that a student is good at taking standardized tests. This book sounds interesting to me: http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ype=blogs&_r=0

Quote:
In seeking academically engaged students, Mr. Soares said in an interview with The Choice, colleges should pay more attention to high school grades and give less credence to standardized test scores.

“High school grades are the single most powerful predictor of college performance,” he said. “High SAT scores over-predict how well a student is going to do in college, and they’re inversely related to academic engagement.”
While many of the colleges that are SAT optional are small, private and perhaps rural (I'm not sure I agree on the last one) there are some well known colleges on this SAT test optional list including Wake Forest. FairTest | The National Center for Fair and Open Testing
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Old 02-19-2014, 07:19 AM
 
Location: West of Louisiana, East of New Mexico
2,916 posts, read 2,985,172 times
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SAT's are just a single indicator. Many students at my high school took loads of SAT prep courses. They were smart kids, but the prep courses probably made anywhere from a 50 to 150 point difference on the tests. Essentially it takes a kid in the 1100-1200 range and puts them in the 1300+ range. A 1300 is good, but when combined with excellent grades and outside activities, you can push yourself into some top-notch universities.

The school you go to matters, but not as much as people think unless you're going to MIT, Harvard etc., and only for certain majors. In other words, students should focus more on interviewing, job experience, "soft skills" and technical skills. The name on the diploma can open doors but for most people, it doesn't matter.
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Old 02-19-2014, 07:56 AM
 
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SATs are supposed to predict how well you do the first year of college (I think, I'm typing this from memory) and how prepared you are for science/math majors based on the math SAT score.

In any case, it's not the only thing students are evaluated on in the admission process. It is possible between GPAs, level of course work, class rank, situation surrounding the student, etc an admissions person can make a reasonable prediction about a candidate's fit for the college.

Anyway, not revealing the names of the school is just standard practice (privacy, propietary info, etc), as long as the researcher describes the schools in ways to ensure it is a representative sample that should not be a big deal. The rest of your question concerning methodology can likely be answered by reading the study. Any limitations to the study would also have been discussed.

149 point is a big difference in SAT scores in the admissions world.
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Old 02-19-2014, 08:01 AM
 
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I saw that study--the other flawed piece is he doesn't state what the GPA's are of the students that applied to the test-optional schools, both in high school and in college. He states that there is a .5 difference between the kids that submitted scores and kids that did not. Well that could be the difference between a 3.5 and a 3.0--that is huge. Also, he never defines what he considers a "good" high school GPA, was that a 3.2 on a 4.0 scale or what?

Also, grades alone are not a good indicator because they don't account for the rigor of the high school. An A at one school isn't the same as an A at another high school or an A in BC Calc sure isn't the same as an A in "intro to Math".

There is no one indicator that predicts success. It's an entire package of elements..and even then it really comes down to the motivation of the student to do well in college.

I know of several kids this year that were "top" high school students...at weak high schools, that have to repeat classes because they just were not prepared well enough in high school even though they took AP classes, etc. Their scores on the ACT/SAT and the AP tests, however, accurately predicted their outcomes...and these are students that do study and try. I also know of some top students that didn't study like they should and are repeating classes---and have hopefully learned their lesson . One personal example--my D's roommate graduated #5 in her high school class with a 3.9 GPA, scored 24 on the ACT. My D was top 15%, had a 3.75 GPA, scored 30 on the ACT....so, which student is really the better student? My D's school was significantly more rigorous and had a full compliment of AP classes and my D had taken 10 AP classes through her school career, which is on the low side for her school for college bound kids. Her roommates school had 5 AP classes total. D is a 4.0 in college, her roommate is not .

All I know is I'm glad I'm not the one trying to wade through the decisions of which kid is the best for the college
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Old 02-19-2014, 08:07 AM
 
20,793 posts, read 61,159,273 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by toobusytoday View Post
I don't think that SAT's are a good indication of how well one will do in college. They show that a student is good at taking standardized tests. This book sounds interesting to me: http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2...ype=blogs&_r=0



While many of the colleges that are SAT optional are small, private and perhaps rural (I'm not sure I agree on the last one) there are some well known colleges on this SAT test optional list including Wake Forest. FairTest | The National Center for Fair and Open Testing
There are some pretty highly selective schools on that list...and many that are in major cities like Boston


SAT/ACT scores really are the only cross-country comparison admissions counselors have. I also don't buy the "my kid isn't good at test taking" as an excuse for not doing well in the ACT/SAT. It's a cop out and I think goes to show that they just were not prepared well enough or frankly, just aren't as smart as their parents think they are...which also lends itself to why GPA's aren't always a good indicator of success. Heck, one of our kids' classmates was a "4.0", having never taken an AP class has already flunked out of college. That 4.0 in itself is meaningless...
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