Abolish the SAT

The American ^ | 13 July 2007 | Charles Murray

[RKV]

For most high school students who want to attend an elite college, the SAT is more than a test. It is one of life’s landmarks. Waiting for the scores—one for verbal, one for math, and now one for writing, with a possible 800 on each—is painfully suspenseful. The exact scores are commonly remembered forever after.

...

The pivotal analysis was published in 2001 by the University of California (UC), which requires all applicants to take both the SAT and achievement tests (three of them at the time the data were gathered: reading, mathematics, and a third of the student’s choosing). Using a database of 77,893 students who applied to UC from 1996 to 1999, Saul Geiser and Roger Studley analyzed the relationship among high school grades, SAT scores, achievement test scores, and freshman grades in college. Here is what they found:

Achievement tests did slightly better than the SAT in predicting freshman grades. High school grade point average, SAT scores, and achievement test scores were entered into a statistical equation to predict the grade point that applicants achieved during their freshman year in college. The researchers found that achievement tests and high school grade point each had about the same independent role—that is, each factor was, by itself, an equally accurate predictor of how a student will do as a college freshman.

But the SAT’s independent role in predicting freshman grade point turned out to be so small that knowing the SAT score added next to nothing to an admissions officer’s ability to forecast how an applicant will do in college—the reason to give the test in the first place.

[srmorton]

UNC Chapel Hill published a study several years ago that showed that a good GPA from an accredited high school was a better predictor of freshman success at Carolina than was the SAT. IMO, the tests promoted by the ETS are somewhat of a racket. The students try to get as high a score as they can and take the test several times, paying the high cost for the test each time. I have twin girls, both of which have problems taking tests such as the SAT. I did not even bother having them take it even once because they both went to the local community college where I work for two years and then transferred to a four-year university.

[luckystarmom]

They are definitely not IQ tests.

You can do well on an IQ test, and poorly on ACT and SAT.

You can do well on the ACT and SAT and do poorly on an IQ test.

IQ tests your potential for learning. It tests things like processing speed, short term memory, long term memory, etc.

IQ tests do not test what you have learned.

[mamelukesabre]

Read “the bell curve”. It says otherwise.

[RKV]

That is a primary benefit of national achievement testing - its an objective measure compared to a large sample. Hope your daughter got in where she wanted to go to college. It turns out that college admissions are at an all time high and predicted to peak soon, then fall off somewhat. This makes competition for the limited slots at elite schools high, and drives a demand for fair methods of selection.

[shrinkermd]

I stand by what I said. The original claim to the SAT was that it did measure “g” even though one could not advocate educational selection on the basis of IQ. That still stands. A majority of people basically believe IQ does not matter much and resent any effort to point out the many correlations of IQ to success in any number of efforts.

By the way, I did, and do, read “The Bell Curve.”

The big problem for colleges and universities now is the Internet. From Yahoo stocks just pull up CPLA, EDU and ESI. If the measure is going to be academic achievement, then efforts like this will be even more rewarded.

I am not saying the leading colleges and universities are about to expire, but they, and the second and third tier colleges, are going to face real competition from Internet related study plans.

Always remember that one half of the population is smarter than the other half no matter what anyone says.

[x]

Read “the bell curve”. It says otherwise.

Hmmm... Charles Murray who wrote the article co-wrote The Bell Curve. Did he change his mind or what?

[RKV]

Prior to 1994 there was a strong correlation between SAT scores and IQ. This gets some folks confused at the test design was changed then. http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/GREIQ.aspx

[RKV]

We ain’t living in Lake Wobegon - “all the children are[n’t] above average.” That’s OK, because intelligence not a measure human worth or a measure of success (however one chooses to define those qualities). That said, as Murray points out the distribution of intelligence in the population does matter.

[shrinkermd]

Always to be remembered is a world class psychologist wrote much of the Bell Curve--his name is Richard Herrnstein. Unfortunately, he died shortly after the book was published.

Also, Murray obtained an A.B. in history from Harvard in 1965 and a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974. Murray has no advanced degree in either psychology or any other scientific discipline.

I suspect, but do not know, that Murray is concerned about the misuse of Herrnstein's conclusions about group data showing racial differences. Actually, the differences described between Whites and Blacks is not much different than the differences within any one family.

Finally, always recall when a group average IQ is 90 for example that does not tell you the spread--a few could be 140 plus while substantially more could be 85 or less. Also, you cannot say 2/3 or .70 of intelligence for any one individual is inherited--some could be 100% inherited and some could be zero inherited.

A lack of statistical knowledge misleads people as to what the Bell Curve (and more speciffically Herrnstein) was saying. He did not, and Murray did not, draw any policy conclusions on the basis of the modest racial differences. His critics and the RATs claim otherwise--a political smear for carefully thought out positions.

[LWalk18]

I believe Murray is thinking this way- like you said, people are largely resistant to believing that IQ correlates to success. We like to, at least in this country, believed that with hard work you can achieve anything, that people are not predestined to be in a certain range of achievement. By supporting a test that correlates to IQ but appears and on a certain level is a test that responds to hard work, you have the best of both worlds.

The SAT has already been attacked, and some schools have already dropped it as a requirement. The SAT II subject test would serve the same purpose as the SAT I but be less subject to attacks of bias. After all, a student could take the subject tests that play best to their strengths.

[Publius6961]

Excuse my impertinence, but you didn’t read the article did you? Murray demonstrates that reasoning as a fallacy.

A persuasive argument, perhaps, but proof? No.

I never did well in SATs, so I don't ahve a dog in this fight, but I continue to see the usefulness of it, particularly with high IQ students who "coasted" through high school.
If they take college seriously, this is the only clue there is for their last change at real education.

[Publius6961]

That is the biggest puzzler in this article, that Murray found NO disconnect with GPAs.
It is no secret that GPAs are notoriously fictitious. That's why the Universities insist on the SAT.

I wonder what happened to this guy?

[Publius6961]

grades and achievement tests (which measure a willingness to work hard) are more important predictors than raw SAT...

Achievement tests, yes. Grades? No.

I note a tendency on this thread to always lump the two together, to create the illusion that grades are uniformly "real" cross-country.

[D Rider]

...but by the time research was conducted in the last half of the 1990s, the test had already been ruined by political correctness.

We kind of figured this out when they decided to "fix" the test. Looks like the SAT was fixed alright.

[Scarchin]

I’ve been a teacher for the past 14 years and am the leader of our school’s SAT preparation program. The program came into existence as a response to low SAT scores. Here’s what I’ve concluded through my research and experience:

The SAT is not an IQ test. It is an indicator of how well a student may be prepared for college level work.

It is an imperfect indicator - as many know through anecdote and personal experience. When I started teaching my SAT prep classes, I was shocked at how poorly some of my best students were doing on the test. What quickly became clear was that they were unaccustomed to the TYPE of test the SAT is - predominantly multiple-choice. This makes sense in light of the movement (1990s-early 2000s) away from multiple-choice testing towards more writing and project/presentation type assessments. What many curriculum leaders forgot was that multiple-choice assessments weren’t going away.

The solution for better test scores is quite simple. When students practice the SAT, their scores go up - dramatically. That is why the test prep companies (Kaplan etc.) can so confidently give you a money back guarantee.

So - for parents on this thread - if your child’s school is not doing any direct SAT preparation and your child is reasonably bright, simply buy the large blue SAT prep book put out by the College Board and work through it with them. Their scores will improve.

As far as “banning the SAT” goes, I think it’s a waste of time to argue the point. Colleges are always going to use a number of indicators to determine admission and (the good ones at least) they should be aware of the limitations of these indicators. What I think is more important is that students, parents, and high schools be aware of this and develop strengths in as many areas as possible. If all a student gives a college is a GPA and an SAT score - he is rolling the dice.

[RobbyS]

Thge drifting up of elementary standards began a long time ago. The AP Courses today are taught on about the same level as an ordinary class in a good high school fifty years ago. The disconnect between higher education and the public schools is pretty general, excerpt for the influence of the public schools on the teacher colleges. Exceptional persons who still fifty years ago would have taught in high school now is found largely in community clleges or universities. In other words, there has been a brain drain from the public schools.

[NittanyLion]

When students practice the SAT, their scores go up - dramatically.

Yep. A few years back I had to take the GMAT to get into an MBA program. I bought the book and CD-ROM with practice questions, and the test questions were remarkably similar. In fact there were a few that were virtually identical to what I practiced.

[freespirited]

A majority of people basically believe IQ does not matter much and resent any effort to point out the many correlations of IQ to success in any number of efforts.

A lot of people say that. Nobody really believes it, but they think if they say it often enough they will convince themselves.

A lot of people, the editorial staff of the NY Times and Washington Post among them, also claim that IQ doesn't exist or has yet to be proven a legitimate concept. Until, of course, there is a death penalty case. Then they are adamant that execution would be wrong because of the perp's low IQ.

[Jakarta ex-pat]

If the South Korean murderer Cho Seung Hui passed it..

Get rid.

Otherwise stick.

[RKV]

Well, maybe GPAs aren’t as fictitious as we think, or at least in combination with test scores they may complement each other to yield a more or less valid result.