posted
If the SATs measured the exact same thing as your GPA did, there wouldn't be much point, neh?
Which is why most colleges look at the two things together, and not either single measure alone. (UCLA used to have a sliding scale -- the higher your GPA, the lower your SAT scores could be, and vice versa. It's the only reason I got in. My GPA wasn't very good.)
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posted
SAT has no correlation to intelligence, well maybe just a bit. It tests how good you are at taking tests more than anything.
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posted
While it may or may not be true that the SAT does or does not correlate to intelligence, I suppose the best way to argue is provide facts.
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posted
The SAT is not meant to correlate to intelligence. That's what IQ tests are for.
It has a good correlation to doing well in one's freshman year in college. That's what the test is designed to do, and it does it quite well. Especially when combined with GPA, it helps college admissions committees make decisions.
posted
I'm one of the "high SAT scores, low GPA" crowd. On the PSATs I got a 680, 580, and 710. My GPA is just below a 3.0 Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:It has a good correlation to doing well in one's freshman year in college.
My understanding was that, among other factors they consider, SAT scores generally are less useful for predicting success in college.
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posted
I'm not sure success in college should be the most important consideration in admissions, just as one shouldn't always take the highest paying job, or buy the lowest priced good. I also think this brand of singular thinking pervades, but who knows?
quote:Your understanding apparently ignores the majority of the research done on the topic.
I would say that is a given for those of us who are not experts on the SAT and haven't studied "the majority of the research done on the topic". My understanding is based on that statements from my university's admissions officer (at UVA), who said they didn't weight the SAT very heavily because they had found that although it was useful, other admissions factors were better predictors of success. I suppose it is possible that the Admissions Office also had an understanding that ignores the majority of research done on the topic, but given they are supposed to be experts on the matter, my best guess is that either their view was consistent with at least some interpretation of the research or they found through experience that the research was incorrect.
On that note, here is the reasoning one of the admissions officer gives on their admissions blog:
quote:I got an interesting comment today and thought I'd turn my response into a full-fledged entry.
I totally agree that the admission process is, and should be, holistic. However I don't understand why UVA puts A LOT MORE weight on GPA than on SATs. Afterall, SATs are standardized as you mentioned, and standardization makes it more comparable than high school GPAs, which can be arbitrary and inflated in one school vs. in another.
BTW, I'd like to know if a rumor I heard is true: UVA will deny/waitlist an applicant if s/he has an average GPA below 3.8 even if the applicant has high SATs (by high I mean 75 percentile or above)?
Thanks! A VA Dad
The fact is that the SAT is not perfect. True, you can find stats that show those who score well on the SAT tend to do well in college, BUT you can't say that those who don't score well are destined to do poorly in college.
I have a fantastic story to illustrate this. Last fall, a 4th year at UVA (a senior) came by my office looking for advice about crafting a letter to law school admission officers. She was trying to draw a correlation between how she did on the SAT and her performance at UVA and her performance on the LSAT and her potential for performance in law school (here's a "retro" joke for those who took the SAT before the format change: SAT:UVA::LSAT:Dream Law School).
This young woman scored very poorly on the SAT. I won't post her score, but it was bad. She is #20 in her class of over 3000 at UVA. Reread that. She's TWENTIETH in a class of THREE THOUSAND.
Thank goodness the admission officers who read her application didn't weigh that SAT score more heavily than her performance in high school! Thank goodness we look at how each school calculates GPA and how grading works at each school (an A starts at 90 in some schools, 93 in others) when we read an application.
If that didn't convince you, consider this: The SAT is four hours long. The high school transcript shows us four years of work. I'd rather see a great transcript with nice teacher recommendations, sincere essays and evidence of some involvement than perfect SAT scores.
quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: I'm not sure success in college should be the most important consideration in admissions, just as one shouldn't always take the highest paying job, or buy the lowest priced good.
Fortunately, there are many schools that have non-competitive (or not entirely competitive) admissions. Even competitive-admission schools certainly consider other factors. However, a school's mission will limit to what degree that is possible. So will the ratio of qualified applicants to available spots.
quote:Originally posted by Xaposert: My understanding is based on that statements from my university's admissions officer (at UVA), who said they didn't weight the SAT very heavily because they had found that although it was useful, other admissions factors were better predictors of success. I suppose it is possible that the Admissions Office also had an understanding that ignores the majority of research done on the topic, but given they are supposed to be experts on the matter, my best guess is that either their view was consistent with at least some interpretation of the research or they found through experience that the research was incorrect.
Clearly, that admissions officer is not a fan of the SAT. A quick perusal of the blog confirms as much. And he is of course entitled to his opinion. And quite possibly, for the particular population that he serves, some of the deficiencies of the SAT may be an especial problem.
However, one admissions officer is a single data point. Last I heard, while the members of NACAC had criticisms of the SAT (and the ACT, which is better in some ways and worse in others), very few were in favor of not using the test(s) as an important part of the admission process.
I've been doing college admissions for a less than two years, so I can't claim many years of experience. But IMO and IME (and based on extensive conversations with colleagues with many decades of experience in the field), any competitive-admissions school that ignores SAT scores is foolish. And any school that makes them the sole (or even primary) criterion is foolish as well.
As I said earlier, SAT (or ACT) scores are most useful when looked at in combination with GPA (and other criteria). However, the data is clear that as a single measure, it has the highest correspondence to success as a college freshman. Fortunately, admissions officers are not forced to choose any single measure! Nor are they required to follow the pack.
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posted
A 3.8 is -- in theory -- a 95 average. That's pretty darn impressive. The weird thing is that my average is only about 90 and I have an SAT that is 99+ percentile, yet I see many, many people with much better GPAs and SATs that are much lower.
posted
I've given up trying to compare anyone's GPA to anyone else's, ever since I found out that some schools actually add points for Honors and AP classes.
And the new SAT? Yeah, NO clue.
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Eros, most schools that do that, also tell you your real gpa. Or at least mine did. We only started weighting our senior year though.
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quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: I've given up trying to compare anyone's GPA to anyone else's, ever since I found out that some schools actually add points for Honors and AP classes.
I thought that was standard. At my high school, honors math got you a 4.5 for an A and a 3.5 for a B (C and less didn't get the extra half-point). We had a higher math class called telescopics, where you got a 5 and a 4, but when my math teacher took over the class, he did so on condition that it would be only a 4.5 and a 3.5, like honors. He wanted only students who were in it for the math. If they just wanted the extra grade points, they could stick with honors.
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posted
Some add a whole point, some add a half, some it depends on the class, some don't do any...
My school provided a "weighted" and an "unweighted" GPA on each grade report. Your weighted GPA only counted for stuff in-school or in-district, valedictorian and such. Your unweighted GPA was what they sent to colleges.
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Ours was a whole point for AP and a half for honors. They kind of counted both for Valedictorian, only people with an unweighted 4.0 got nominated, but the highest weighted was the validictorian.
The colleges I applied at did get rid of music, art, and other fun electives, I think including the state required gym. Grr.
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posted
all this talk about sat's is making me think more and more about my august 20th mcat! stop it guys!
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posted
My school doesn't weight GPAs. As a result, we have something like 18 valedictorian candidates (in a class of ~300). Also, as another data point, I fall into the "high GPA, high SAT/PSAT score" crowd.
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posted
My school does weight GPAs and we still have 18 (actually, 21, I think) valedictorians...not candidates. They all get to give a speech. Painful.
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Well, we're only candidates because we technically haven't finished school yet - in theory, someone could get a B and drop down to salutatorian.
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quote:Originally posted by charles_martel: My school does weight GPAs and we still have 18 (actually, 21, I think) valedictorians...not candidates. They all get to give a speech. Painful.
That happens about every other year at my HS. But they only choose one-- if there are too many candidates to choose one, they base who gets it on extracurriculars, emphasis on community service, special honors given outside of the school community, adversity overcome, and suchlike.
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quote: The weird thing is that my average is only about 90 and I have an SAT that is 99+ percentile, yet I see many, many people with much better GPAs and SATs that are much lower.
It's oddish :/.
Makes sense to me. My SAT scores were a combination of how much I had learned and how well I did on tests. My GPA was a combination of how much I had learned and how much I participated and how much work I did. You can learn the material and be lazy (like me) and not do enough of the work, and your GPA will be lower than your SAT.
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posted
My husband is prone to bombing tests if he tenses up. I think probably a lot of people experience a kind of stress on tests that they don't when doing regular projects, etc.
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posted
Right, Jenna, but when someone gets a 1000 on the SAT old and I got around 1550, and my GPA is a 3.5 while theirs is a 4.0, it makes me wonder if grade inflation is giving them an edge that my deflated school doesn't give.
I think that over the last 30 years there has in fact been a 5 or more point shift upwards in average grades which hopefully would represent more material learned and mastered. It may also represent nation-wide inflation.
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quote:Originally posted by Phanto: Right, Jenna, but when someone gets a 1000 on the SAT old and I got around 1550, and my GPA is a 3.5 while theirs is a 4.0, it makes me wonder if grade inflation is giving them an edge that my deflated school doesn't give.
Or you do well on standardized tests and they don't.
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posted
Or you're really smart but blow off homework because it's boring and that affects your grades.
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posted
Stop offering reasonable explanations that mildly malign me! Stop!
Either way, I do not know the actual statistics beyond the easy remember one that at Harvard 50% of students get an A or A-, so I can't make an actual argument for grade inflation.
posted
Other than ElJay's (which is totally a description of what I was like in high school, but not in college), how did those suggestions malign you at all? kq's certainly didn't.
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posted
I was being more facetious than anything with that comment, but yes, KQ's comment is more a compliment ^_^.
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