I did not realize it, but I am below average! When I step back and look at myself I always have thought...pretty average. 5’11’’, average; 175 pounds, average. I live somewhere in-between Los Angeles and New York; average. As I was listening and reading about how College Board is revamping the SAT for 2016 and I started reflecting; how did I score on the SAT compared to everyone else?
First of all, I can not remember my exact score. I took the SAT back in 1993 and I scored somewhere between a 950 to 980 back when the composite score was 1600. I looked up some historic scores on College Board and I found that I scored around the 41st percentile. I might still be within the range of ‘average’, between 40% to 60% but for this article, I will say I am below average.
At this point my ego became a bit deflated. I have always worked hard throughout my life, always tried to learn as much as I could, and have been successful. So what does my SAT score tell me about me today? Nothing anymore. What did it say about me when I was 17?
When I was 17 and took the SAT I did not study, I did not buy a prep book, and I did not take any SAT prep courses/workshops. I signed-up, showed-up, and took it. Shortly after I took that SAT I decided to go to Missouri State (known as Southwest at the time) and they required ACT scores so I took the ACT and got an equivalent score, low twenties...again, I can’t remember. In the meantime I got my bachelor’s and master’s in six-years and started my doctorate at 24. My doctorate took a long time to finish and I got an MBA on the way, but this was all adult stuff, beyond the original scope of the SAT...or is it?
Now that I am an adult work in higher education administration I can see the benefits of the SAT...to a point. In an excellent article at Slate, David Hambrick and Christopher Chabris went over the pros and cons of the SAT and their first noteworthy statement was “the SAT does predict success in college—not perfectly, but relatively well, especially given that it takes just a few hours to administer. And, unlike a ‘complex portrait’ of a student’s life, it can be scored in an objective way.” This is logical. The SAT (and ACT), which takes only a few hours to complete and is taken by millions of students (1.6 million took the SAT and 1.6 million took the ACT in 2012) can relatively well predict how a student will do in college and thereafter.
So the SAT is most beneficial at scale. The SAT is also amazing because it creates an almost perfect bell curve.
Chart 1: SAT bell curve for 2012 (critical thinking and math)
Now I am not an expert stats person but the fact that 1.6 million students can take the SAT and the results look this statistically sound is very cool (I am sure there is a more academic word out there). Another interesting observation about the 2012 results is where the quartiles fall.
Chart 2: Quartiles of 2012 SAT (critical thinking and math)
Where the scores lie tell us that students can differentiate themselves depending on where they score. The top 25% is from 1160 to 1600 with a range of 440 points while the middle 50% is from 870 and 1150 and has a range of 280 points. When looking at the middle 50% all the students look the same, they are all crammed within 280 points of each other while students who score in the top 25% can differentiate themselves over a wider range of 440 points. Having a large upper range allows selective and highly selective schools that require the SAT to automatically filter out 74% or more of entering freshman.
Moving on, the best quote from the Slate article discusses general intelligence:
“What this all means is that the SAT measures something…General intelligence. The content of the SAT is practically indistinguishable from that of standardized intelligence tests that social scientists use to study individual differences, and that psychologists and psychiatrists use to determine whether a person is intellectually disabled… Howard Gardner, known for his theory of multiple intelligences, once called the SAT and other scholastic measures ‘thinly disguised’ intelligence tests.”
I agree that intelligence tests are a positive and even if this is a ‘thinly disguised’ intelligence test it allows schools to understand one aspect of potential applicants. Scenario: imagine you are in charge of admissions at a large public or private institution; how are you going to sift through thousands of applicants you get every year? Unfortunately most schools do not have the time to look over every applicant and truly assess individual students in a holistic way; maybe Bard College can do this but Arizona State University, Ohio State University, and the like cannot. For the class of 2017, the eight Ivy League schools accepted 23,010 students and rejected 224,273 students. How else are these eight schools going to reject so many students without a filter like the SAT or ACT?
As a gate into college, how applicable is the SAT after college? Sure, it can predict how successful someone might be, but how many intelligence tests have I taken in my professional careers? Zero. How many companies require intelligence of their employees? Not that many. So the fact that the SAT measures general intelligence is good, but the SAT is still a way to filter out students on the front end of college with one simple score and has little to nothing to do with you after college.
Finally the quote that summarizes the Slate article, “ the bottom line is that there are large, measurable differences among people in intellectual ability, and these differences have consequences for people’s lives. Ignoring these facts will only distract us from discovering and implementing wise policies.”
True. There are going to be differences between students who score a 950 and a 1450 but the biggest issue I have with the SAT is not with the student who score in the top 25% or the highly selective schools who accept those students; I am concerned about the rest of the students. What happens if you do score a 850, a 950, or a 1050? How are you suppose to feel about yourself when you are going to your local community college or state school; are you going to feel less of a student? I have to question what types of policies can be written when it comes to a standardized test that millions of students take especially when the SAT is really used to filter out the middle scores and only reward the top. How will these policies help the bottom 25%? How will wise policies help a person who scored in the 50% successfully complete college?
Back to me; I would say that the SAT is not beneficial when you take into consideration the individual and adult learners. For those 18 entering college as freshmen the SAT is just part of the game, it helps schools put you in a positive bucket, a neutral bucket, or a negative bucket. If you are an adult student or are entering graduate school then the SAT tell you nothing. For me, I am 21-years past the SAT and it is firmly my past and the only thing that is guiding my future, is me.
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