Putting the argument about the SAT scores in its place

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

SAT isn’t a recognition of skill to succeed. It is a measurement of how well a student absorbed the common curriculum of secondary education.

For that reason, it’s a meaningful indicator of how well a student will absorb a post-secondary curriculum.

But, certainly not the only indicator.

It isn't even an indicator of what they learned in the 'common curriculum of secondary' school. They cram for SATs. They put it in short term memory and then forget most of it when the test is finished. It is a totally BS system.

I know this, I have worked with 11th and 12th graders for many years and talked to them about this. They get tutors, they buy books to practice with, they cram and cram. Test success is not an indicator of long term knowledge of anything. The most important thing in education is becoming a life long learner. SATs don't measure that: they measure short term memory.

All that extra study and "cramming" might raise their score a few points. You are dead wrong.

Tell me again what you teach? Was it dog grooming?

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

SAT isn’t a recognition of skill to succeed. It is a measurement of how well a student absorbed the common curriculum of secondary education.

For that reason, it’s a meaningful indicator of how well a student will absorb a post-secondary curriculum.

But, certainly not the only indicator.

It isn't even an indicator of what they learned in the 'common curriculum of secondary' school. They cram for SATs. They put it in short term memory and then forget most of it when the test is finished. It is a totally BS system.

I know this, I have worked with 11th and 12th graders for many years and talked to them about this. They get tutors, they buy books to practice with, they cram and cram. Test success is not an indicator of long term knowledge of anything. The most important thing in education is becoming a life long learner. SATs don't measure that: they measure short term memory.

You can't 'cram' for mathematics, reading comprehension, or writing without first obtaining a grasp of the subject in school.

No amount of 'cramming' will take a sub-par student and turn him or her into a high SAT performer if they failed to comprehend their secondary instruction.

You are a teacher are you? I've taught for 30 years. High school. I know what I'm talking about. Whatever level the kid is at, if they cram for SATs, they get a much higher score than they would if they didn't. As well, a lot of teachers, in their classes, cover SAT material to help kids do better. I have absolutely no respect for standardized testing. They don't just learn how to answer the questions, they learn test taking skills.

Yes, a friend of mine owns the southern California concession of The Princeton Review, probably the best known of the SAT prep classes and they are very good at maximizing the performance of their students.

Maximizing means they get the best they can do. You cannot take a moron, give him a test prep program and turn him into an Einstein in a few short weeks.

Mediocre minds get mediocre scores.

Mediocre minds with test prep help score slightly higher than mediocre scores.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Again the SAT has been around since 1926. I have seen no record to this day about the importance of this test until whites could not be given every college admission. So it really can't be all that important.

Is everything about race? If you have to eliminate standarized testing to achieve racial equality in admissions then you're not making a good case for racial equality.

For as long as I remember, the message behind racial equality is that ALL races, colors, and ethnicity were equally capable of success given a level playing field.

You can't get playing field more level than standardized testing.

One thing to consider is that the programs that offer the best prep for SATs are expensive and kids who don't come from families who can afford that are at a disadvantage.

If we are actually going to have racial equality, our schools would be all equal, and they are not. They depend on the tax dollars of the school district, and kids of color usually live in poorer school districts. Kids of color are less likely to be able to pay for the materials or programs to cram for the SAT.

Poverty is an endless cycle that needs to change through education, but the first thing is to make all of our schools equal, across the country, with money and teaching. You can say we throw money at education w/o results, but that isn't true: we can all see how much better schools are in the more affluent areas.

Throwing money at schools is a good thing ... which is precisely why my daughter attended private school and university.

As for making schools 'equal', good luck bringing all schools down to a common denominator and ensuring a rapid expansion of the private school market.

What is this "University" that I see people talking about? A university is actually a collection of colleges, so one would normally say they went to "college", and not they went to "university".

I have noticed this is a particularly Canadian expression. If in conversation you were to say, "I went to University in Toronto" I wouldn't bat an eye, but if you said, "I went to University at Stanford" most people would look for the hidden camera to see if you were punking them for a TV show.

 

[Esmeralda]

The SAT score is a measure of a student's potential to do well in college. It is not a predictor of college success, as many people with great potential are lazy, and many people with limited potential work hard and succeed in college.

But over the years, the ETS has refined their test protocols, and MOST COLLEGES ARE CONVINCED THAT THE SCORES HAVE SOME VALIDITY. Obviously.

But the SAT is an embarrassment to certain people in the Education Industry. Students in the Humanities are generally people who have pathetic SAT scores. (This is particularly true of people who study Education). So you have "Professors" who have risen to the top of their fields and still have to deal with their low SAT scores, and they do something that is entirely predictable: They disparage the value and validity of SAT scores.

This has been going on for a very long time. If you want to get a High School Teacher fired up, mention the low average SAT scores of college students studying Education. Mention that Education is not even a legitimate subject for study...like history, science, psychology, or even art.

The same thing applies to IQ. If I had a quarter for every time I've heard a sociology major rant about how meaningless IQ's are...I'd have a lot of quarters. Because sociology majors tend to have relatively low IQ's, even when they have Masters degrees or Doctorates.

What a load of BS. Provide sources for the assertions you make.

 

[westwall]

SAT isn’t a recognition of skill to succeed. It is a measurement of how well a student absorbed the common curriculum of secondary education.

For that reason, it’s a meaningful indicator of how well a student will absorb a post-secondary curriculum.

But, certainly not the only indicator.

It isn't even an indicator of what they learned in the 'common curriculum of secondary' school. They cram for SATs. They put it in short term memory and then forget most of it when the test is finished. It is a totally BS system.

I know this, I have worked with 11th and 12th graders for many years and talked to them about this. They get tutors, they buy books to practice with, they cram and cram. Test success is not an indicator of long term knowledge of anything. The most important thing in education is becoming a life long learner. SATs don't measure that: they measure short term memory.

You can't 'cram' for mathematics, reading comprehension, or writing without first obtaining a grasp of the subject in school.

No amount of 'cramming' will take a sub-par student and turn him or her into a high SAT performer if they failed to comprehend their secondary instruction.

You are a teacher are you? I've taught for 30 years. High school. I know what I'm talking about. Whatever level the kid is at, if they cram for SATs, they get a much higher score than they would if they didn't. As well, a lot of teachers, in their classes, cover SAT material to help kids do better. I have absolutely no respect for standardized testing. They don't just learn how to answer the questions, they learn test taking skills.

Yes, a friend of mine owns the southern California concession of The Princeton Review, probably the best known of the SAT prep classes and they are very good at maximizing the performance of their students.

Maximizing means they get the best they can do. You cannot take a moron, give him a test prep program and turn him into an Einstein in a few short weeks.

Mediocre minds get mediocre scores.

Mediocre minds with test prep help score slightly higher than mediocre scores.

Certainly not an Einstein, but the PR can take an average kid and after the course he will be able to score as well on the SAT as a dedicated though not smart student, or as well as a smart but lazy student. And, if he is a smart but lazy student, he will test like a rock star. The PR is that good a program.

 

[fncceo]

if he is a smart but lazy student, he will test like a rock star. The PR is that good a program.

If, and only if, he stops being a lazy student for the purposes of studying for a SAT exam.

There seems to be some idea that rich people (read non-minority) are paying money for SAT prep courses and their kids automatically get better grades, automatic admission into the university of their choice and a date with Mandy Pepperidge.

If a lazy student but intelligent student gets energized by preparing for the SATs and does well, this is also an indication that he would flourish in a university environment.

In my own life, I was ambivalent to high school and found it a crashing bore. My grades were fine, but I wasn't a competitive student. University turned that around for me. GPA became my all-consuming goal and making the Dean's List was better than sex. I was taking courses interesting to me. I was learning things that I knew were assuring my future economic prosperity and I found the social life far more stimulating and uplifting than that of high school.

So, the argument still stands... standarized testing is the only really FAIR way of choosing who does and does not get college admission (or at least the college of their choice).

And, remember, if you fail to into a good school due to lackluster SAT scores, there is always Community College.

 

[westwall]

if he is a smart but lazy student, he will test like a rock star. The PR is that good a program.

If, and only if, he stops being a lazy student for the purposes of studying for a SAT exam.

There seems to be some idea that rich people (read non-minority) are paying money for SAT prep courses and their kids automatically get better grades, automatic admission into the university of their choice and a date with Mandy Pepperidge.

If a lazy student but intelligent student gets energized by preparing for the SATs and does well, this is also an indication that he would flourish in a university environment.

In my own life, I was ambivalent to high school and found it a crashing bore. My grades were fine, but I wasn't a competitive student. University turned that around for me. I was taking courses interesting to me. I was learning things that I knew were assuring my future economic prosperity and I found the social life far more stimulating and uplifting than that of high school.

So, the argument still stands... standarized testing is the only really FAIR way of choosing who does and does not get college admission (or at least the college of their choice).

And, remember, if you fail to into a good school due to lackluster SAT scores, there is always Community College.

Nope. The PR makes the class interesting. Lazy but smart students are not engaged. The PR specializing in getting them engaged. That's why they are so successful.

 

[fncceo]

if he is a smart but lazy student, he will test like a rock star. The PR is that good a program.

If, and only if, he stops being a lazy student for the purposes of studying for a SAT exam.

There seems to be some idea that rich people (read non-minority) are paying money for SAT prep courses and their kids automatically get better grades, automatic admission into the university of their choice and a date with Mandy Pepperidge.

If a lazy student but intelligent student gets energized by preparing for the SATs and does well, this is also an indication that he would flourish in a university environment.

In my own life, I was ambivalent to high school and found it a crashing bore. My grades were fine, but I wasn't a competitive student. University turned that around for me. I was taking courses interesting to me. I was learning things that I knew were assuring my future economic prosperity and I found the social life far more stimulating and uplifting than that of high school.

So, the argument still stands... standarized testing is the only really FAIR way of choosing who does and does not get college admission (or at least the college of their choice).

And, remember, if you fail to into a good school due to lackluster SAT scores, there is always Community College.

Nope. The PR makes the class interesting. Lazy but smart students are not engaged. The PR specializing in getting them engaged. That's why they are so successful.

That's precisely what I'm saying. I'm not denigrating 'PR'. I'm sure it's an excellent program. That is my point. SAT exams will not just identify those who do well because they excelled in high school studies. They will also identify those who will do well when properly stimulated.

 

[IM2]

if he is a smart but lazy student, he will test like a rock star. The PR is that good a program.

If, and only if, he stops being a lazy student for the purposes of studying for a SAT exam.

There seems to be some idea that rich people (read non-minority) are paying money for SAT prep courses and their kids automatically get better grades, automatic admission into the university of their choice and a date with Mandy Pepperidge.

If a lazy student but intelligent student gets energized by preparing for the SATs and does well, this is also an indication that he would flourish in a university environment.

In my own life, I was ambivalent to high school and found it a crashing bore. My grades were fine, but I wasn't a competitive student. University turned that around for me. I was taking courses interesting to me. I was learning things that I knew were assuring my future economic prosperity and I found the social life far more stimulating and uplifting than that of high school.

So, the argument still stands... standarized testing is the only really FAIR way of choosing who does and does not get college admission (or at least the college of their choice).

And, remember, if you fail to into a good school due to lackluster SAT scores, there is always Community College.

Nope. The PR makes the class interesting. Lazy but smart students are not engaged. The PR specializing in getting them engaged. That's why they are so successful.

That's precisely what I'm saying. I'm not denigrating 'PR'. I'm sure it's an excellent program. That is my point. SAT exams will not just identify those who do well because they excelled in high school studies. They will also identify those who will do well when properly stimulated.

No they don't.

 

[IM2]

if he is a smart but lazy student, he will test like a rock star. The PR is that good a program.

If, and only if, he stops being a lazy student for the purposes of studying for a SAT exam.

There seems to be some idea that rich people (read non-minority) are paying money for SAT prep courses and their kids automatically get better grades, automatic admission into the university of their choice and a date with Mandy Pepperidge.

If a lazy student but intelligent student gets energized by preparing for the SATs and does well, this is also an indication that he would flourish in a university environment.

In my own life, I was ambivalent to high school and found it a crashing bore. My grades were fine, but I wasn't a competitive student. University turned that around for me. GPA became my all-consuming goal and making the Dean's List was better than sex. I was taking courses interesting to me. I was learning things that I knew were assuring my future economic prosperity and I found the social life far more stimulating and uplifting than that of high school.

So, the argument still stands... standarized testing is the only really FAIR way of choosing who does and does not get college admission (or at least the college of their choice).

And, remember, if you fail to into a good school due to lackluster SAT scores, there is always Community College.

SAT's are not and never have been the sole determinant if college admission. In a lot of states, state universities provide automatic admission to students from that state who have the high school GPA to enter. So the SAT is not all that important to at least 100 state universities by name. For at least 6 universities in our state the SAT doesn't really mean anything because state high school graduates are already accepted if they meet minimum entrance standards. So then why does this argument about SAT scores even exist? And why is it only argued by a narrow slice of the white population?

 

[fncceo]

SAT's are not and never have been the sole determinant if college admission.

Never said they were. But poor SAT scores can keep you out of the university of your choice when other things are considered as well.

I'm really not sure what you're on about here.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

The only people I've ever known who get all worked up over S.A.T. scores are those too stupid to have scored well on them.

 

[IM2]

SAT's are not and never have been the sole determinant if college admission.

Never said they were. But poor SAT scores can keep you out of the university of your choice when other things are considered as well.

I'm really not sure what you're on about here.

That SAT's really don't matter.

 

[fncceo]

SAT's are not and never have been the sole determinant if college admission.

Never said they were. But poor SAT scores can keep you out of the university of your choice when other things are considered as well.

I'm really not sure what you're on about here.

That SAT's really don't matter.

Try not taking them and see what happens.

 

[IM2]

The only people I've ever known who get all worked up over S.A.T. scores are those too stupid to have scored well on them.

Well that would include you and almost every other white person here. I didn't take the SAT myself. I took the ACT and scored in the top 10 percent of test takers in America if my memory serves me correctly.

 

[IM2]

SAT's are not and never have been the sole determinant if college admission.

Never said they were. But poor SAT scores can keep you out of the university of your choice when other things are considered as well.

I'm really not sure what you're on about here.

That SAT's really don't matter.

Try not taking them and see what happens.

I didn't. I took the ACT but it rally didn't mater because I went to a state university as a graduate of the states high school system with a 3.0 so I met the GPA to enter the university regardless of whether or not I took any test. Also you seem to miss that in more than 800 universities and the number is increasing SAT scores are optional or not considered. As for me, I'm 56 now with post grad education. So I don't think I have to take the SAT to get into a university.

 

[bgrouse]

SAT isn’t a recognition of skill to succeed. It is a measurement of how well a student absorbed the common curriculum of secondary education.

For that reason, it’s a meaningful indicator of how well a student will absorb a post-secondary curriculum.

But, certainly not the only indicator.

Actually its only a indicatior of what a student remembers from 8 am until noon on a particular Saturday morning. The SAT argument was never ever used while whites were denying people of color access into universities. It has been used as an exam since 1926 and it has never been the sole standard indicating anything.

I guess black people like you think solving the problems on an SAT test is strictly a matter of what you happen to recall or not recall purely by chance on test day.

 

[jillian]

"But the person who scored well on an SAT will not necessarily be the best doctor or the best lawyer or the best businessman. These tests do not measure character, leadership, creativity, perseverance." ​

William Julius Wilson​

William J. Wilson is the top of the line of our time expert in sociology. He has studied this issue thoroughly. None of you have. So let us discuss the SAT and what it doesn't do.

The issue that the US and other countries need to acknowledge is that kids need certain skills to do well in the world. These skills can come in a variety of forms, not just traditional education routes.

And SATs aren't necessarily a good indicia

 

[bgrouse]

Again the SAT has been around since 1926. I have seen no record to this day about the importance of this test until whites could not be given every college admission. So it really can't be all that important.

Is everything about race? If you have to eliminate standarized testing to achieve racial equality in admissions then you're not making a good case for racial equality.

For as long as I remember, the message behind racial equality is that ALL races, colors, and ethnicity were equally capable of success given a level playing field.

You can't get playing field more level than standardized testing.

You are wrong according to the top sociologist in America and perhaps on earth.

In the case of college admissions, research reveals that standardized test scores may not measure real merit and their relation to an applicant's future performance is questionable. High school grades are a better reflection of college grades than SAT scores in both selective and non-selective colleges, but neither measure important attributes such as perseverance, motivation and interpersonal skills. Wilson said that while standardized tests should not be abandoned, they should be given less weight and considered alongside an applicant's initiative, leadership qualities, the ability to overcome personal hardship, honors and awards, among other criteria.

William Julius Wilson Speaks on Affirmative Opportunity

William Julius Wilson Speaks on Affirmative Opportunity at Hakim Lecture

.

Where in that quote does William say the test doesn't provide a level playing field? All he says in that quote is the test is poor at measuring certain qualities, not that it measures them in a racially unequal way.

 

[IM2]

Again the SAT has been around since 1926. I have seen no record to this day about the importance of this test until whites could not be given every college admission. So it really can't be all that important.

Is everything about race? If you have to eliminate standarized testing to achieve racial equality in admissions then you're not making a good case for racial equality.

For as long as I remember, the message behind racial equality is that ALL races, colors, and ethnicity were equally capable of success given a level playing field.

You can't get playing field more level than standardized testing.

You are wrong according to the top sociologist in America and perhaps on earth.

In the case of college admissions, research reveals that standardized test scores may not measure real merit and their relation to an applicant's future performance is questionable. High school grades are a better reflection of college grades than SAT scores in both selective and non-selective colleges, but neither measure important attributes such as perseverance, motivation and interpersonal skills. Wilson said that while standardized tests should not be abandoned, they should be given less weight and considered alongside an applicant's initiative, leadership qualities, the ability to overcome personal hardship, honors and awards, among other criteria.

William Julius Wilson Speaks on Affirmative Opportunity

William Julius Wilson Speaks on Affirmative Opportunity at Hakim Lecture

.

Where in that quote does William say the test doesn't provide a level playing field? All he says in that quote is the test is poor at measuring certain qualities, not that it measures them in a racially unequal way.

The fact it is a poor measure means it is not the standard to be used to indicate any kind of intelligence.