The End of the SATs??

[Ms. Walsh]

I just saw this on ABC news, and I thought it was really interesting, especially for HS seniors who are applying to college right now:

Oct. 7, 2006 — Tens of thousands of high school students across the country are preparing for next Saturday's Scholastic Aptitude Test, the outcome of which largely determines who will succeed in the highly competitive college and university admissions process.

But at a growing number of the country's best liberal arts colleges — one fourth of the top 100, as measured by U.S. News and World Report — the SAT has outlived its usefulness. It is no longer required for admission.

Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, was one of the first to drop the requirement 22 years ago.

"The SAT itself was not a fair indication of ability in all cases," said Elaine Tuggle Hansen, president of Bates.

"The SAT wasn't telling us about students who performed well on a variety of other measures," she added. "We wanted to look at all the information that comes in an admissions folder and really pick out the students who could make the most of this opportunity."

More Schools Dropping SATs

Bowdoin and Bates were the first to drop SATs — and the ACT, largely popular in the Midwest — as admissions requirements. Providence and Knox College are the latest. They join a group of schools including Mount Holyoke, Middlebury and Hamilton. Membership is growing, in part because of a 20-year-long study by Bates.

Over two decades, Bates tracked the classroom performance of those who submitted SAT scores and those who did not. The study concluded that the submission of SAT scores did not predict success and the absence of scores did not predict failure.

The four-year grade point average of those who submitted SATs was only .05 of a point less than those who did not. Graduation rates at Bates were only .10 less. The study also concluded that SAT submitters did seem to score better on standardized tests.

To require the SAT "doesn't make any sense," said Bill Hiss, who was dean of admissions at Bates when it dropped the requirement, and who now is the college's vice president for external affairs.

"We're artificially truncating the pool of people who would be successful," Hiss said.

The rest of the article is here: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2539985&page=2

Personally, I agree w/ colleges that opt out of requiring the SATs. As someone who actually did quite well on the SATs but attends a college that doesn't require them, I think that it's impossible to judge a person's "aptitude" based on a 3-hour test. I know a lot of intelligent people who couldn't even pull a 1000 (back when it was scored out of 1600), when the bulk of the top LACs and universities required at least a 1350 minimum in order to apply.

[SteveFrame]

I am finding more and more I agree with this. I did well on them in 1983 when I started college too. My oldest daughter did too. In fact she got higher than I did.

My youngest daughter who is in college now too has not done that well on the ACT which is required by the college she is attending. In school she made straight A's and finished in the top 10% of her class. But she has taken the ACT 4 times now and her highest score is 16. Her college let her in, but she has to acquire a 19 before she can enter the medical program (radiology) that she plans to major in. She just keeps taking the test over and over, and is even taking special classes to help her pass it. She has finished one semester of college and has a 3.9 GPA, but even that won't let her in the program.

So yes I see that the test don't fully measure a person's skills. My daughter is very bright and very smart. She just chokes on test.

[KBT]

Steve, I hope your daughter gets that 19 eventually on her ACT. To me if I were looking for bright students I would look more towards that 3.9 GPA and how that person did in high school over a 3 hour test. Some people are simply bad test takers.

I never took the SAT in high school because it wasn't required to graduate. I honestly don't think the SAT should be required for admission.

[Ms. Walsh]

ITA w/ what you posted Steve.

My sister is a senior in HS and wants to be a nurse, but all the nursing programs require a certain score on the SATs which is impossible for her to get. She's not the best student, but she's a really hard worker and loves helping people. I understand why she doesn't even want to bother trying. It's really frustrating b/c she probably won't even get the chance to do something that she really loves doing.

To me, college and HS are two totally different things. I learned a lot more in my first year of college than I ever learned in the 4 years of HS, and a lot of people who hate HS love college just b/c it's not "necessary" to go. It's your decision to show up to class, what your major is, what classes you take (aside from Gen. Eds), etc. It was definitely a 180 from HS, to me. I don't think it's necessarily fair to judge how a person will do in college based on a test that they took in HS.

Like Bates College, my college is one of the top 100 LACs in the country that doesn't require SAT scores (like they mentioned in the article). They look at essays, class rank, GPA, and interviews first. The majority of students actually submit SAT scores, but the average is something like 1260 (when it was w/ the 1600 score), which is quite low for a school of that academic level.

[Bree]

I'm not surprised they're considering this, especially with all of the complaints that keep coming up about the SAT's. I really think one test should not determine who goes to college and who doesn't. Like Steve said, there are bright people out there who just don't do good on tests, and they shouldn't be penalized for that. We can't base education on test after test. I scored normal on the SAT, but ultimately, it wasn't what got me into college. It was my overall GPA history.

[poohbear19]

I have major issues with the SATs. I took the SATs twice, the college I went to required them. Despite the fact that I graduated in a high precentile of my class... I pretty much bombed the SAT (and ACT) like no one's business (I made below 1000, and this was when the highest score was 1600). The school let me in on a porbationary basis for a year...

In the end, out of all the people in my class that went to the same school with a higher SAT score, half dropped out and a fourth of them barly graduated. I ended up graduating with a 3.5 GPA, and a BS in mathematics. I'm was in the same situation with the GRE, and am currently holding a 3.7 GPA now.

I just suck at standardize testing.

[Southern Honey]

I'm with you all. I don't find Standardized Tests a reflection of intelligence, but more or less how much someone pays to take all of the preparatory courses. And that I don't care for at all, because it is in essence purchasing the ability to compete.

[Scott]

Okay when I took the SAT i was among the first group to take the new SAT, which was now scored out of 2400 due to a new writing component. Now my score from out of 2400 was 1680, which isnt great out of 2400, but if you dropped the extra 800 points and took what it would have been out of 1600 i ended up with an 1180. Thats not a bad score, but i know that when i applied for colleges, they didnt even care what i had gotten on the writing component because they said it was not fair to judge someone's writing skills when they are writing about a topic they may not know about and not giving them the proper amount of time to research it. The SATs are not a fair way to judge someone's abilities because of the time limit. That is an intimidating thing, knowing you have to do x amount of problems in y minutes. Some people work slower than other, but are just as smart. All around its not fair.