An op-ed about the SAT, "You can't judge people by their scores", that misses the boat entirely:
An interesting study recently emerged from Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine. Bates is one of nearly 400 colleges and universities (according to FairTest) that no longer require standardized tests for admission. At these schools, applicants have the option of submitting their SATs. Admission officers have long assumed that applicants who choose not to submit their scores have lower scores than those who do. This proved true. In fact, there was a considerable difference -- 160 points -- between the two groups. So far, no surprises, right?So, now for the interesting part. The study showed no difference in academic performance or graduation rates between students who submitted their scores and those who did not. It also found that there was little difference among SAT submitters and non-submitters and their chosen career paths, with the exception of fields that require additional standardized testing, such as graduate programs in medicine, law and business.
So, what does this all mean? It clearly strengthens the argument that the SAT and ACT are not accurate predictors of either intelligence or of potential for success in college and afterwards. High-school grades, course choices and class rank are far more precise indicators.
No, it clearly does not.
It supports the argument that the SAT may not be highly related to college GPA or graduation rates or career paths for Bates College. If there's one thing I'd like opinionists to get straight before I die, it is the concept that the SAT's predictive validity can vary from college to college. It might not be useful for Bates, but one cannot generalize from that scenario to say that this is proof it's not useful elsewhere. Universities differ, standards differ, and students differ. The validity of an exam does not exist in a vacuum, and "the predictive validity of the SAT," as a concept or value, can be interpreted only in how it is used in a particular situation.
What's more, there are plenty of reasons that the SAT might not be correlated with GPA at Bates, some less flattering to Bates than others. Grade inflation may be rampant, and a reduced variance in GPA would necessarily result in a reduced correlation with the SAT. A 160-point mean difference is large, but not huge, and this certainly doesn't mean that someone with rock-bottom SATs will do just fine at Bates. What's more, this little caveat is particularly weaselly:
...It also found that there was little difference among SAT submitters and non-submitters and their chosen career paths, with the exception of fields that require additional standardized testing, such as graduate programs in medicine, law and business.
I find it fascinating that, of all the ways in which these fields could differ from the other programs at Bates, the one this writer mentions is that these fields require further testing. True - and they also require solid scientific knowledge, good math skills, top-notch reading ability, good memorizational and organizational skills, etc. Gee - I wonder if maybe the students with the higher SATs are more likely to end up in these fields because they're better qualified?
This writer wants schools to re-evaluate the SAT's usefulness, but perhaps, "even better," says schools should drop the SAT altogether. Why would it be better to drop an admissions step without doing the research, than to do the actual research? Is that perhaps because this writer really doesn't want anyone to know how useful the SAT is at some universities?
Update: Illuminaria crunches the numbers. Read it all.
Posted by kswygert at March 9, 2005 01:10 PM