The Best Test

The Best Test

The SAT is a standardized test used to help in the admissions process for many colleges.   It has been used for many years but, now colleges across the US are debating if the SAT is testing the proper material for the group of students they want in their schools and if they should use the test when admitting students.
The SAT is an IQ test so it measures your level of intelligence, not your mastery of learning.   The problem with this is that it is not what colleges are looking for. They want students who will come to their school and learn and achieve what they need to.   In trying to make that possible a few colleges have stopped using the SAT and many others are looking for other tests or ways of degrading the SAT.
Colleges want to get away from the SAT, but how do you if the other thing’s you use like state curriculum tests or GPA’s differ from state to state or even high school to high school.   A way to fix this is by developing a chart for measuring state test scores similar to the chart that provides equivalencies for SAT and ACT scores.   That seems like a great idea but an effort to correlate the scores would be incredibly complex, because certain groups, like the Hispanics or women, may score lower on the SAT then they do on other tests like the state mandated tests.
College officials want to know the grades the freshman they accept will most likely receive.   So if the state tests can do this better than the SAT they will use state tests or vice versa. The downfall to state tests is the amount of money needed to make them Admission test worthy.   It may be expensive but, researchers believe it is worth spending the money to help students and schools measurer where they need to improve.
The SAT is creating ethnicity problems at many colleges.   Asians and Whites tend to have a higher score than Blacks and Mexicans.   So when put in to a formula for accepting students the Blacks and Mexicans are getting the so called, short end of the stick. So, to...