Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What does the SAT really measure?

This is the subject of ongoing debate at the leadership level of my kids' private school. The school rarely produces a NMSF despite being a pricey "college prep" day school.

The school takes the position that the SAT does not really matter or measure anything substantive. PBS had an interview with the CEO of the Princeton Review that totally rips the value of the SAT as well. The Princeton Review guy claims that the SAT only measures test taking ability and that it is a poor predictor of college success.

OTOH, past discussions of SATs on this board seem to presume that the SAT somewhat accurately measures a child's education, information base and problem solving. Colleges certainly consider it, hopefully for more reason than because they are in the habit of doing so. (I was a NMSF so my bias is that the test is HIGHLY accurate.)

I would love to hear the thoughts of the board on this. My own feeling is that our school is doing CYA and the lack of NMSF indicates a deficit somewhere.

My understanding is that the SAT was a very good predictor of collegiate success up to approximately 1994. Prior to 1994, not only did the test score track closely with college success, it also tracked closely to IQ, which was why Mensa accepted SAT scores for membership. But then it had an overhaul that introduced subjectivity into the verbal scoring (open blank questions instead of multiple choice) and students were allowed a calculator. Afterwards, even more subjectivity has been added, with the introduction of an essay portion, and the analogy section (which was the part of the test most influenced by intelligence, not achievement) has been eliminated.

So I'd say that the effectiveness of today's SAT as a predictor of college success is an open question that needs to be researched.

I honestly don't know much of anything about today's SAT tests (and found what Dude wrote very interesting!)... but fwiw, (and I'm OLD so my memory is both questionable as well as I'm sure my high school data points are waaaay waaaay different than today)... but fwiw if memory serves me - back when I was in high school, re the National Merit Scholarships - when you took the SAT (or PSAT?) you qualified as a semi-finalist - and then in order to become a finalist a company that sponsored a scholarship had to "find" you - you had to be interested in their line of work and it also helped to have a relative who worked for the company or have some other means of standing out other than just the test scores. There was more to NMSFs than simply scoring above a certain point on the test - actual scholarship $ had to exist somewhere for each scholarship, and that usually came with some restrictions in addition to test scores. I remember that at our high school, the kids who got NMFS weren't the kids who were necessarily at the very top of the class in terms of achievement... and there were kids (including me) who scored very very highly on the tests but were only "semi-finalists".

What types of colleges do graduating seniors typically go to from your college prep school? What is the average (and range) of SAT scores? What is the experience of going to school their like? Is it a small school - and if so, is there a possibility that the lack of NMSF kids is simply due to numbers?

polarbear

The SAT is still "A Good Intelligence Test" http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebat...tter/the-sat-is-a-good-intelligence-test , but the College Board can't say that for political reasons. It is supposed to predict success in college, and it does. You can look at college graduation rates vs. SAT Math+Verbal scores in Table 6 of the "Completing College" report at http://heri.ucla.edu/DARCU/CompletingCollege2011.pdf .

And THAT is why I brought my question here. Thank you all. To you questions, polarbear, the school graduates 70-75 kids per year and has had three NMSF since 2005 (Wow that sounds low!) The seniors go generally to public universities in state and through the south with a couple going to smaller liberal arts schools. (I should note that admission to our flagship State U. is crazy competitive.)No Ivies or particularly exclusive schools appear regularly.

Your next question is probably, so why are your children AT this school. That has a long, involved answer involving the "least worst" option analysis and I won't bore you with it. However, they are at the elementary school and I am trying to get the leadership to face the merit scholar (and related college admission, as polarbear rightly points out) issue and not simply define it as a non-issue.

OK, let's talk about intelligence. First there is the concept of g, as being a general sort of cognitive ability, which can never be accurately tested and may not exist. IQ tests all have specific tasks and abilities that they test, and may get slightly different results from each other.

Then there is Gardner's multiple intelligences and his objection to the privileging of two that happen to easy to measure: verbal and logical/mathematical. Gardner and I are of the opinion that the most important of the intelligences is actually interpersonal intelligence. My work experience and the time I spent on a graduate admissions committee are parts of the reasons I believe this.

Also, there is the question of how behavior affects future scores on the SAT. And for that, I reference Walter Mischel's marshmallow test. In his famous 1960s experiment, Mischel asked kids three- or four-years-old to wait 15 minutes with a marshmallow in order to get a second marshmallow when the researcher returned.

Mischel sometimes found this delayed gratification in very young children, but he believed (or believes) that it is a learned behavior. At last report, he was investigating those people that could not wait at four, but had somehow dodged the substance abuse problems and other issues that dogged many of the future adult selves of children that could not wait for the second marshmallow.

Mischel followed up on the marshmallow kids later and found out most of the kids who could wait scored an average of 200 points higher on the SAT. So it turns out that the SAT may also be a measure of the kind of behavior that will allow students to do well in college.

SAT scores and other measures of intelligence are not affected much by the variation of quality in schools within the U.S. or by other variables that parents can control, so I don't think your children will be harmed by attending a high school with few National Merit Scholars.

I agree.

As a former PG kid from a poor family who went to a rural public high school, I have some experience of this. I was busy educating myself in high school, reading Voltaire in biology class, and so forth. For me, the real problem with that setup was the lack of a intellectual peer group. I arrived at college emotionally and socially immature and with abysmal work habits.

My psychologist buddy tells me that most people have comparable SAT and GRE scores, but my GRE verbal and math were each exactly 100 points higher than my 98th percentile SATs, after a liberal arts education (GPA of about 2.5) and a few years of work experience.

It does make me wonder why we have so few though. We don't have any highly intelligent kids in upper school? They ALL go to college and almost all take the SAT. And supposing my kids have tested well (which they have), they will have few to no academic peers in school? That is troubling.