Why Do Colleges Care About the SATs?

by rrusczyk, Aug 31, 2009, 2:51 PM

An AoPS parent/educator recently suggested that colleges lean on SATs in part (maybe in large part) as an indicator of who can pay. Looks like a good choice on their part.

While I do think that one of the reasons the SAT is a crummy metric is because you can boot-camp for it without learning much about how to think, the linked outcomes above are not purely evidence that the rich a buying good SAT scores. In a pure meritocracy, you would expect to see outcomes like this over time (and a lot of the other outcomes that people talk about with respect to inequality).

I picked up that link from this post, which has some very interesting observations relevant to the age-old nature-v-nurture debate.

education

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Oh, there are so many reasons for that pattern to be there. Everything correlates to income.

On the SAT, I think the answers depend on what sort of college you're talking about. For non-elite colleges, they're a school-independent measure, so including it in the admission index reduces the impact of differences in grading standards. They're also a test of basic skills, and thus useful in determining who needs remedial math or English.
At the top schools- well, the SAT isn't very good at distinguishing among the top students. It may still serve to weed out some blatantly unqualified students, but it shouldn't make much difference for the hard decisions.

by jmerry, Aug 31, 2009, 6:44 PM

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I think that's the point -- the suggestion is that it solves the "hard decisions" by taking the student who can pay.

by rrusczyk, Aug 31, 2009, 10:18 PM

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But everyone applying to the elite schools already has a high SAT score, and the elite schools all have very generous financial aid policies. I could see you arguing that this is because they use SAT scores to discriminate, but does the difference between a 2300 and a 2400 correlate very well to income? I don't know.

by worthawholebean, Sep 1, 2009, 12:25 AM

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First, do all the people at elite colleges have scores in that range? I suspect no, though I bet the ones that don't are often legacies, which is kind of amusing to square with this conversation.

However, I don't think this sort of conversation is as relevant for the tier 1 schools (or AoPSers) as it is for the tier 2 liberal arts schools...

by rrusczyk, Sep 1, 2009, 1:11 AM

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MIT is at the high end, with an average SAT score of 2390.

And second-tier schools are often need-aware, meaning they don't need to hide behind SAT scores.

by worthawholebean, Sep 1, 2009, 2:34 AM

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Interesting -- you mean schools ask for income level as part of the application process now? (I mean, is it required? Or can you safely ignore it and ask for need later? I can't remember what it was like when I was a student -- that's a long time ago

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This post has been edited 1 time. Last edited by rrusczyk, Sep 1, 2009, 3:01 PM

by rrusczyk, Sep 1, 2009, 2:59 PM

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Of course, just because they are aware of need doesn't mean they don't have to hide behind SAT scores. They can use the SAT scores to justify decisions that are really made based on need, no?

by rrusczyk, Sep 1, 2009, 3:01 PM

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need-blind_admission for further reference.

by worthawholebean, Sep 1, 2009, 9:55 PM

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I like the word "claims" in the first sentence

by rrusczyk, Sep 1, 2009, 10:38 PM

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really though, the same could be said for any test...even the AMCs (though maybe not to the same degree). People who can pay, can sign up for online classes offered by AoPS, particularly more expensive classes like WOOT, and they will probably end up getting better scores (not to demean AoPS or the AMC!

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by modx07, Sep 2, 2009, 9:22 PM

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OK, now the spotlight is on you. How would *you* do college admissions? And you can't propose something that would take lots more time or money than they have for the current system.

by sandor, Sep 8, 2009, 4:32 AM